About The Nightingale

    In stale blank verse a subject stale

    I send per post my Nightingale;

    And like an honest bard, dear Wordsworth,

    You'll tell me what you think, my Bird's worth.

    My own opinion's briefly this—

    His bill he opens not amiss;

    And when he has sung a stave or so,

    His breast, and some small space below,

    So throbs and swells, that you might swear

    No vulgar music's working there.

    So far, so good; but then, 'od rot him!

    There's something falls off at his bottom.

    Yet, sure, no wonder it should breed,

    That my Bird's Tail's a tail indeed

    And makes it's own inglorious harmony

    Æolio crepitû, non carmine.

From a letter from STC to Wordsworth after writing The Nightingale: