Elegiac Sonnets, and Other Poems, Volume 1, The Ninth Edition/Sonnet LV

by Charlotte Smith

SONNET LV.

THE RETURN OF THE NIGHTINGALE.

WRITTEN IN MAY 1791.

BORNE on the warm wing of the western gale,
    How tremulously low is heard to float
Thro' the green budding thorns that fringe the vale,
    The early Nightingale's prelusive note.

'Tis Hope's instinctive power that through the grove
    Tells how benignant Heaven revives the earth;
'Tis the soft voice of young and timid Love
    That calls these melting sounds of sweetness forth.

With transport, once, sweet bird! I hail'd thy lay,
    And bade thee welcome to our shades again,
To charm the wandering poet's pensive way

    And sooth the solitary lover's pain;

But now!—such evils in my lot combine,

As shut my languid sense—to Hope's dear voice and thine!