Ode to a Nightingale - Mark Bradshaw

My heart aches

And a drowsy numbness pains my sense

As though of hemlock I had drunk

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past and lethe wards had sunk

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot

But being too happy in thine happiness

That thou light winged dryad of the trees

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green and shadows numberless

Singest of summer in full throated ease

O for a draught of vintage that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep delved earth

Tasting of flora and the country green

Dance and provencal song and sun burnt mirth

O for a beaker full of the warm south

Full of the true the blushful hippocrene

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim

And purple stained mouth

That I might drink and leave the world unseen

And with thee fade away into the forest dim

Fade far away dissolve and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known

The weariness the fever and the fret

Here where men sit and hear each other groan

Where palsy shakes a few sad last gray hairs

Where youth grows pale and spectre thin and dies

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden eyed despairs

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes

Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow

Away away for I will fly to thee

Not charioted by bacchus and his pards

But on the viewless wings of poesy

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards

Already with thee tender is the night

And haply the queen moon is on her throne

Cluster d around by all her starry fays

But here there is no light

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs

But in embalmed darkness guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass the thicket and the fruit tree wild

White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine

Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves

And mid may's eldest child

The coming musk rose full of dewy wine

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves

Darkling I listen and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful death

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rime

To take into the air my quiet breath

Now more than ever seems it rich to die

To cease upon the midnight with no pain

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy

Still wouldst thou sing and I have ears in vain

To thy high requiem become a sod

Thou wast not born for death immortal bird

No hungry generations tread thee down

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown

Perhaps the self same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of ruth when sick for home

She stood in tears amid the alien corn

The same that oft times hath

Charm'd magic casement opening on the foam

Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn

Forlorn the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self

Adieu the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do deceiving elf

Adieu adieu thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows over the still stream

Up the hill side and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley glades

Was it a vision or a waking dream

Fled is that music do I wake or sleep