Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/232

      Never nightingale so singeth—
      Oh! she leans on thorny tree,
      And her poet-soul she flingeth
      Over pain to victory!
Yet she never sings such music,—or she sings it not to me!

      Never blackbirds, never thrushes,
      N or small finches sing as sweet,
      When the sun strikes through the bushes,
      To their crimson clinging feet,
And their pretty eyes look sideways to the summer heavens complete.

      If it were a bird, it seemèd
      Most like Chaucer's, which, in sooth,
      He of green and azure dreamed,
      While it sate in spirit-ruth
On that bier of a crowned lady, singing nigh her silent mouth.

      If it were a bird!—ah, sceptic,
      Give me "Yea" or give me "Nay"—
      Though my soul were nympholeptic,
      As I heard that virëlay,
You may stoop your pride to pardon, for my sin is far away.

      I rose up in exaltation
      And an inward trembling heat,
      And (it seemed) in geste of passion,
      Dropped the music to my feet,
Like a garment rustling downwards!—such a silence followed it.

      Heart and head beat through the quiet,
      Full and heavily, though slower;
      In the song, I think, and by it,
      Mystic Presences of power
Had up-snatched me to the Timeless, then returned me to the Hour.