The Nightingale's Nest Poem by John Clare

The Nightingale's Nest

Rating: 2.8


Up this green woodland-ride let’s softly rove,
And list the nightingale - she dwells just here.
Hush ! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear
The noise might drive her from her home of love ;
For here I’ve heard her many a merry year -
At morn, at eve, nay, all the live-long day,
As though she lived on song. This very spot,
Just where that old-man’s-beard all wildly trails
Rude arbours o’er the road, and stops the way -
And where that child its blue-bell flowers hath got,
Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails -
There have I hunted like a very boy,
Creeping on hands and knees through matted thorn
To find her nest, and see her feed her young.
And vainly did I many hours employ :
All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn.
And where those crimping fern-leaves ramp among
The hazel’s under boughs, I’ve nestled down,
And watched her while she sung ; and her renown
Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird
Should have no better dress than russet brown.
Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy,
And feathers stand on end, as ’twere with joy,
And mouth wide open to release her heart
Of its out-sobbing songs. The happiest part
Of summer’s fame she shared, for so to me
Did happy fancies shapen her employ ;
But if I touched a bush, or scarcely stirred,
All in a moment stopt. I watched in vain :
The timid bird had left the hazel bush,
And at a distance hid to sing again.
Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves,
Rich Ecstasy would pour its luscious strain,
Till envy spurred the emulating thrush
To start less wild and scarce inferior songs ;
For while of half the year Care him bereaves,
To damp the ardour of his speckled breast ;
The nightingale to summer’s life belongs,
And naked trees, and winter’s nipping wrongs,
Are strangers to her music and her rest.
Her joys are evergreen, her world is wide -
Hark! there she is as usual - let’s be hush -
For in this black-thorn clump, if rightly guest,
Her curious house is hidden. Part aside
These hazel branches in a gentle way,
And stoop right cautious ’neath the rustling boughs,
For we will have another search to day,
And hunt this fern-strewn thorn-clump round and round ;
And where this reeded wood-grass idly bows,
We’ll wade right through, it is a likely nook :
In such like spots, and often on the ground,
They’ll build, where rude boys never think to look -
Aye, as I live ! her secret nest is here,
Upon this white-thorn stump ! I’ve searched about
For hours in vain. There! put that bramble by -
Nay, trample on its branches and get near.
How subtle is the bird ! she started out,
And raised a plaintive note of danger nigh,
Ere we were past the brambles ; and now, near
Her nest, she sudden stops - as choking fear,
That might betray her home. So even now
We’ll leave it as we found it : safety’s guard
Of pathless solitudes shall keep it still.
See there! she’s sitting on the old oak bough,
Mute in her fears ; our presence doth retard
Her joys, and doubt turns every rapture chill.
Sing on, sweet bird! may no worse hap befall
Thy visions, than the fear that now deceives.
We will not plunder music of its dower,
Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall ;
For melody seems hid in every flower,
That blossoms near thy home. These harebells all
Seem bowing with the beautiful in song ;
And gaping cuckoo-flower, with spotted leaves,
Seems blushing of the singing it has heard.
How curious is the nest ; no other bird
Uses such loose materials, or weaves
Its dwelling in such spots : dead oaken leaves
Are placed without, and velvet moss within,
And little scraps of grass, and, scant and spare,
What scarcely seem materials, down and hair ;
For from men’s haunts she nothing seems to win.
Yet Nature is the builder, and contrives
Homes for her children’s comfort, even here ;
Where Solitude’s disciples spend their lives
Unseen, save when a wanderer passes near
That loves such pleasant places. Deep adown,
The nest is made a hermit’s mossy cell.
Snug lie her curious eggs in number five,
Of deadened green, or rather olive brown ;
And the old prickly thorn-bush guards them well.
So here we’ll leave them, still unknown to wrong,
As the old woodland’s legacy of song.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Susan Williams 30 December 2015

It's a little old-fashioned but beauty abounds in its every verse.

23 3 Reply
david bailie 25 December 2017

Old Fashioned.... I don't think so... David Attenborough whose programmes are full of such descriptions would give his right arm, I suspect, to have half the ability to use such majestic phrasing of our language.. Aside from thatClassics are classics for one of the facts that they are ageless and readable a million times!

1 0
Steve Tucker 15 February 2012

Gosh, this poem is so beautiful!

10 3 Reply
Imogen c 11 October 2007

it is a great pitty if i am the only one who has visted this page

9 3 Reply
John Johnson 17 August 2020

Why do I get this feeling that he focused on leaving the nest and surrounds as they are, and listening to the song from afar as it ought to be, because of his own personal experiences? I don't think he merely records nature at all, it's highly selective, he comments and instructs gracefully, makes us focus imaginatively without drifting into fanciful personifications. Could it be that this narrator has the attitude he wished his readers could have had?

1 0 Reply
Steve 29 April 2020

Seems to me this is about nature and the excitement of engaging with it. Keats poem is, itseems to me, about the human condition, but this has nature as the fabric of the nest, the poem and of our excitement at finding and seeing the nest.

1 0 Reply
Leon Dupasind 25 July 2018

It is the male nightingale that sings. Not the female.

2 2 Reply
Jim Nairn 04 September 2018

While that's worth pointing out, I don't feel it detracts from the poem. Writers often assumed it was the female who sang & it interesting to think why (and the connotation that had etc.) . Clare certainly knew the natural world, and as Tim Dee points out in his poetry anthology, he wrote about 150 species of British birds without any technical kit

1 0
Carol Schultz 21 June 2016

Clare keeps his poems focused on the subject matter not turning to his feelings about it. Dr. Tom Dillingham, our teacher.

1 2 Reply
Carol Schultz 21 June 2016

A class with Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Mizzou brought me here. Very beautiful.

0 0 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
John Clare

John Clare

Northamptonshire / England
Close
Error Success