But what have
nightingales
to do
In gloomy England, called the free .
In gloomy England, called the free .
Elizabeth Browning
The cypress stood up like a church
That night we felt our love would hold,
And saintly moonlight seemed to search
And wash the whole world clean as gold;
The olives crystallized the vales'
Broad slopes until the hills grew strong:
The fire-flies and the nightingales
Throbbed each to either, flame and song.
The nightingales, the nightingales!
II.
Upon the angle of its shade
The cypress stood, self-balanced high;
Half up, half down, as double-made,
Along the ground, against the sky;
And _we_, too! from such soul-height went
Such leaps of blood, so blindly driven,
We scarce knew if our nature meant
Most passionate earth or intense heaven
The nightingales, the nightingales!
III.
We paled with love, we shook with love,
We kissed so close we could not vow;
Till Giulio whispered "Sweet, above
God's Ever guaranties this Now. "
And through his words the nightingales
Drove straight and full their long clear call,
Like arrows through heroic mails,
And love was awful in it all.
The nightingales, the nightingales!
IV.
O cold white moonlight of the north,
Refresh these pulses, quench this hell!
O coverture of death drawn forth
Across this garden-chamber . . . well!
But what have nightingales to do
In gloomy England, called the free . . .
(Yes, free to die in! . . . ) when we two
Are sundered, singing still to me?
And still they sing, the nightingales!
V.
I think I hear him, how he cried
"My own soul's life! " between their notes.
Each man has but one soul supplied,
And that's immortal. Though his throat's
On fire with passion now, to _her_
He can't say what to me he said!
And yet he moves her, they aver.
The nightingales sing through my head,--
The nightingales, the nightingales!
