IN the beloved hour that ushers day, In the pure dew, under the breaking grey, One bird, ere yet the woodland quires awake, With brief reveille summons all the brake:
Chirp, chirp, it goes; nor waits an answer long;And that small signal fills the grove with song.
Thus on my pipe I breathed a strain or two;It scarce was music, but 'twas all I knew.
It was not music, for I lacked the art, Yet what but frozen music filled my heart?
Chirp, chirp, I went, nor hoped a nobler strain;But Heaven decreed I should not pipe in vain, For, lo! not far from there, in secret dale, All silent, sat an ancient nightingale.
My sparrow notes he heard; thereat awoke;And with a tide of song his silence broke.
