"I'd Choose To Be A Nightingale"

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Title:     "I'd Choose To Be A Nightingale"
Author: J. C. Manning [More Titles by Manning]

Answer to a Poem which appeared in a daily paper,
with the above title, signed "Mary" (Llandovery.)

Gentle Mary! Do you know
What it is you crave?
Listen! As the flowers grow
O'er the dismal grave,
So, when sweetest sings the bird
Thou would'st like to be,
When in twilight's hour is heard
The magic melody,
Harshly comes the cruel thorn
Against the songster's breast,
And melting music thus is born
Of pain and sad unrest (a)
So if like Philomel thou'dst sing,
And happiness impart,
Thy breast must bear the cruel sting
That haunts the songster's heart.

 

(a) There is a poetic legend, which says that when the Nightingale sings the sweetest, it presses its breast against a thorn.

[The end]
J. C. Manning's poem: "I'd Choose To Be A Nightingale"

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