A sunbeam, all the day that fell Upon the fountain,-- Like laughter gurgling in the dell Below the mountain,-- Drank, with its sparkle, one by one, The water-words that, in the sun, Made melody,--the sun-rays tell,-- That never yet was done.
A moon-ray, that had gone astray ’Mid wildwood alleys, Where Echo haunts the forest way Among the valleys, The livelong night upon the rocks Slept, hid among girl Echo’s locks, And stole her voice,--the moonbeams say,-- That mocks and only mocks.
A shadow, that had made its seat Amid the roses And thorns--the bitter and the sweet That life discloses-- Mixed with the rose-balm and the dew And crimson thorns that pierced it through, Until its soul,--the shades repeat,-- Was portion of them, too.
A Fairy found the beam of gold, And ray of glitter; The shadow, whose dim soul did hold Both sweet and bitter; And made a bird, that haunts the morn And night; that flits from flower to thorn, A voice of laughter,--it is told,-- Love, mockery, and scorn.
“Among the white haw-blossoms, where the creek Droned under drifts of dogwood and of haw, The red-bird, like a crimson blossom blown Against the snow-white bosom of the Spring, The chaste confusion of her lawny breast, Sang on, prophetic of serener days, As confident as June’s completer hours. And I stood listening like a hind, who hears A wood-nymph breathing in a forest flute Among gray beech-trees of myth-haunted ways: And when it ceased, the memory of the air Blew like a syrinx in my brain: I made A lyric of the notes that men might know:
He flies with flirt and fluting-- As flies a falling star From flaming star-beds shooting shooting-- From where the roses are.
Wings past and sings; and seven Notes, sweet as fragrance is,-- That turn to sylphs in heaven,-- Float round him full of bliss.
He sings; each burning feather Thrills, throbbing at his throat; A song of glow-worm weather, And of a firefly boat:
Of Elfland and a princess Who, born of a perfume, His music lulls,--where winces That rose’s cradled bloom.
No bird is half so airy, No bird of dusk or dawn, O masking King of Fairy! O red-crowned Oberon.
“Alas! the nightingale I never heard. Yet I, remembering how your voice would thrill Me with exalted expectation, felt The passion-throated nightingale would win Into my soul in some wild way like this, With reminiscences of dusks long dead, Presentiments of nights, that mate the flowers And the prompt stars, and marry them with song. Of such,--love whispered me when deep in dreams,-- I made my nightingale. It is a voice Heard in the April of our year of love:
