The Nightingale Poem by Anna Katharine Green

And now soft night hath ta'en her seat on high,
Outbreathing balmy peace o'er all the land;
Silent in sleep the dimpled meadows lie
Like tired children soothed by mother's hand.
Throughout the valley hums the zephyr bland,
Charming the roses from their passionate dreams,
To hear the wild and melancholy streams
Pulse to the waving of its mystic wand;
While large and low eans down the mellow moon,
Whose whitely blazing urn doth make a silver noon.

But hark! what heavenly sound is this that now
Steals like a dream adown the fragrant vale,
Or like a thought across a maiden's brow,
That brings a lambent flush upon the pale?
It is the heart-song of the nightingale,
Which yearns forever upward in a mist
Of subtle sadness, clouding all who list,
With softened shadows of her secret ail;
And now so purely fills the silence clear,
Great Nature seems to hush her beating heart to hear.