O Nightingale My Heart

O Nightingale my heart

How sad thou art!

How heavy is thy wing,

Desperately whirrëd that thy throat may fling

Song to the tingling silences remote!

Thine eye whose ruddy spark

Burned fiery of late,

How dead and dark!

Why so soon didst thou sing,

And with such turbulence of love and hate?

Learn that there is no singing yet can bring

The expected dawn more near;

And thou art spent already, though the night

Scarce has begun;

What voice, what eyes wilt thou have for the light

When the light shall appear,

And O what wings to bear thee t'ward the Sun?