The Nightingale (Coleridge)
For works with similar titles, see The Nightingale.
- "The Nightingale, a Conversational Poem" in Lyrical Ballads (1798)
- "The Nightingale" in Lyrical Ballads Volume I (1800)
- "The Nightingale" in Sibylline Leaves (1817)
The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in April 1798. Originally included in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads, which he published with William Wordsworth, the poem disputes the traditional idea that nightingales are connected to the idea of melancholy. Instead, the nightingale represents to Coleridge the experience of nature. Midway through the poem, the narrator stops discussing the nightingale in order to describe a mysterious female and a gothic scene. After the narrator is returned to his original train of thought by the nightingale's song, he recalls a moment when he took his crying son out to see the moon, which immediately filled the child with joy. Warning: template has been deprecated.