Nightingale Poem by J.M. Harker

"A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds." Percy Bysshe Shelley

A new morning has stirred me into day
No other soul alive, no sound to break
The peaceful slumber of the London sky.
Huddled houses still hunch inwards, willow-like,
And all this crooked world is innocent asleep.
No purpose can be found in being wakeful
There is no work yet for my hands to do;
I steal myself unto the window sill
In this bleak light my caged soul is loosed
Forth bursts these lines, my exuberant song
Proclaiming motivation to be found
In beauty, duty, truth, activity and rhyme
These carefully selected blooms
Of sweet linguistic shapes lovingly made
With elegant black ink and no real home
That I could give them.
I let my words flow on into the dawn
As a nightingale sings tunefully and long
With no more purpose but comforting sounds
To warm the solitude of the only waking soul