On Hearing The Nightingale
By Thomas Oldham
Thanks for thy song, sweet Bird! thanks for thy song!
O! 'twas delightful; how have I been lost
As in a blissful dream! how has my soul
Been wafted in a sea of melody!
Scarce yet am I awake, yet scarce myself:
Still with the enchanting music's dying breath
The air is kept in motion, and conveys
Sweet whispers to the finely-listening ear;
Or is it but an echo from the cell
Of memory that deludes my doating sense?
Ah! now 'tis gone; Silence resumes her sway,
And o'er my hearing spreads her subtile web;
But she resumes it, changed, methinks, in nature,
More soft, more amiable, as if inform'd
With the departed soul of harmony.
Thanks for thy song, sweet Bird! it well deserves
All my heart's gratitude; for it has still'd
Its anxious throbbings, and removed the load
Of sadness that oppress'd the springs of life:
More lightly now it beats, and welcomes back
The glowing tide of health, and conscious feels
The blessing of existence. It imparts
To all my frame reanimating force;
My nerves partake of its elastic spring;
No longer falsely sentient, they receive
The just impression from external things,
Vibrate harmoniously to Nature's touch,
And in her general concert bear a part.
Thanks, sweetest Bird! enchanting Nightingale!
How by the magic influence of thy song,
How am I changed from what, of late, I was!
And every object, too, how seems it changed!
This wood, when first I enter'd it, appear'd
To Fancy's eye the haunt of Melancholy,
Her dreariest haunt, where, in her saddest mood,
The Goddess loved to dwell; 'twas lonesome gloom,
And awful stillness all: I felt her power;
The imaginative Spirit she o'erwhelm'd
With a mysterious load of shapeless feeling:
Her leaden hand oppress'd my labouring heart;
Upon the ground I sank, scarce sensible,
And buried, as it were, in conscious death.
With what soft influence, what resistless power,
Did thy mellifluous strain, kind Philomel!
Insinuate itself into my ear,
Melting its dull unwillingness to listen,
And opening soon a passage to my heart!
But thou beginn'st again, be hush'd my soul!
O wondrous power of heavenly harmony!
See, Philomel! the Goddess of the night,
Charm'd with thy strains her cloudy veil withdraws,
And pays thee with a smile of gratitude;
A smile that to her beauty adds new charms,
Enchanting heaven and earth, while Melancholy,
Sighing away her sadness, lifts her head,
And, gazing on her tutelary Power
With eyes reflecting soft her dewy light,
Feels her divinest inspiration steal
Into her melting soul, absorb'd in heaven.
My sympathizing heart with bliss o'erflows.
Thanks sweetest Nightingale! thanks for thy song!
Long on this night shall grateful memory doat;
And oft to this loved wood will I return.