The Nightingale

I heard the nightingale one day
wooing his beloved in the spring:
his fellows had turned away from him,
not hearing him as he chanted
the song of love —
but I feared my words might trouble
the serenity of his gentle love.

*

He kept repeating a single phrase —
of love and of the nest;
singing to the one alone who
listened to him as he pleaded, 'Come...'
in strains sweet and merry
that cannot be set down, for writing disfigures them;
oh, what plaintive strains they were.

*

He ceased his singing,
and his lone listener felt it
and slipped quickly toward him, repeating
'Come. Come..'
Ah, how beautiful her love —
and would that verse might aid me to describe
her gentle love.

*

Ah, how noble a concord between two creatures,
untroubled by any feeling of doubt or misgiving.
And such trust as spring inspires keeps out
the creeping weariness that summer brings.
And our wise nature is powerless to comprehend
a love as gentle as hers.