Poet And The Bird, The

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Said a people to a poet---" Go out from among us straightway!
     While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine.
There's a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways
     Makes fitter music to our ears than any song of thine!"

The poet went out weeping---the nightingale ceased chanting;
     "Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale, is all thy sweetness done?"
I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting,
     Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun."

The poet went out weeping,---and died abroad, bereft there---
     The bird flew to his grave and died, amid a thousand wails:---
And, when I last came by the place, I swear the music left there
     Was only of the poet's song, and not the nightingale's.

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