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| I WENT a roaming through the woods alone, | |
| And heard the nightingale that made her moan. | |
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| Hard task it were to tell how dewy-still | |
| Were flowers and ferns and foliage in the rays | |
| Of Hesper, white amid the daffodil | 5 |
| Of twilight fleck’d with faintest chrysoprase; | |
| And all the while, embower’d in leafy bays, | |
| The bird prolong’d her sharp soul-thrilling tone. | |
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| I went a roaming through the woods alone, | |
| And heard the nightingale that made her moan. | 10 |
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| But as I stood and listened, on the air | |
| Arose another voice more clear and keen, | |
| That startled silence with a sweet despair, | |
| And still’d the bird beneath her leafy screen: | |
| The star of Love, those lattice-boughs between, | 15 |
| Grew large and lean’d to listen from his zone. | |
| I went a roaming through the woods alone, | |
| And heard the nightingale that made her moan. | |
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| The voice, methought, was neither man’s nor boy’s, | |
| Nor bird’s nor woman’s, but all these in one: | 20 |
| In Paradise perchance such perfect noise | |
| Resounds from angel choirs in unison, | |
| Chanting with cherubim their antiphon | |
| To Christ and Mary on the sapphire throne. | |
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| I went a roaming through the woods alone, | 25 |
| And heard the nightingale that made her moan. | |
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| Then down the forest aisles there came a boy, | |
| Unearthly pale, with passion in his eyes; | |
| Who sang a song whereof the sound was joy, | |
| But all the burden was of love that dies | 30 |
| And death that lives—a song of sobs and sighs, | |
| A wild swan’s note of Death and Love in one. | |
| |
| I went a roaming through the woods alone, | |
| And heard the nightingale that made her moan. | |
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| Love burn’d within his luminous eyes, and Death | 35 |
| Had made his fluting voice so keen and high, | |
| The wild wood trembled as he pass’d beneath, | |
| With throbbing throat singing, Love-led, to die: | |
| Then all was hush’d, till in the thicket nigh | |
| The bird resum’d her sharp soul-thrilling tone. | 40 |
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| I went a roaming through the woods alone, | |
| And heard the nightingale that made her moan. | |
| |
| But in my heart and in my brain the cry, | |
| The wail, the dirge, the dirge of Death and Love, | |
| Still throbs and throbs, flute-like, and will not die, | 45 |
| Piercing and clear the night-bird’s tune above,— | |
| The aching, anguish’d, wild-swan’s note, whereof | |
| The sweet sad flower of song was over-blown. | |
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| I went a roaming through the woods alone, | |
| And heard the nightingale that made her moan. | 50 |
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