Hail! Sweetest rhapsodist
Of virgin song unfettered yet!
Sweet honey-bee of sound,
What flow'ry meads hast found,
Of wilding pain and rapture,
In spirit births, a moment's capture?
A part of all that thou hast met,
Sweet mocking bird!
How far above, how far beyond,
All dream or spirit fancy,
Each fountain burst of purest song!
To what fair region dost belong?
What roseate glory followeth after
Thy natures gladdest laughter,--
Thine infinite necromancy,
Sweet mocking bird?
Within thy song, as in thy night,
What matchless dearth of fact!
Old Art bent low in arabesque,
Transmuting life to things grotesque.
And his golden mist, a still low call,
From model-nature's all-in-all,
Bids thee all rapture reinact,
Sweet mocking bird.
And when is nature more complete,
Than in thy midnight hour?
When every angle meet and mingle,
Within thy misty laden dingle,
And spirit pauseth in the heart,
To rectify its ancient art,
By the shadow on the flower,
Sweet mocking bird.
And when has music kissed a string
Till such a lyric breath intone?
Of all the joy, of all the pain,
Sweet summer holds to earth again.
The far sweet pain of bursting Hours,
Whose sparkling eyes, in tears of flowers,
Yield thee a drink that's all thine own,
Sweet mocking bird.
Ah! Light of dreams! when spirit hears
Such music calls, can life forget?
Each night thou lightest up the gloom
Within my spirits stifled room,
And beckoneth on to hopes afar,
My singer and my star, my star!
The all of all that thou hast met,
Sweet mocking bird!