To the Nightingale

Exert thy voice, sweet harbinger of spring!

    This moment is thy time to sing,

    This moment I attend to praise,

And set my numbers to they lays.

    Free as thine shall be my song;

    As they music, short, or long.

Poets, wild as thee, were born,

    Pleasing best when unconfined,

    When to please is least designed,

Soothing but their cares to rest;

    Cares do still their thoughts molest,

    And still th' unhappy poet's breast,

Like thine, when best he sings, is placed against a thorn.

She begins, Let all be still!

    Muse, they promise now fulfill!

Sweet, oh! sweet, still sweeter yet

Can thy words such accents fit,

Canst thou syllables refine,

Melt a sense that shall retain

Still some spirit of the brain,

Till with sounds like these it join.

    'Twill not be! then change thy note;

    Let division shake thy throat.

Hark! Division now she tries;

Yet as far the Muse outflies.

    Cease then, prithee, cease thy tune;

    Trifler, wilt thou sing till *June*?

Till thy business all lies waste,

And the time of building's past!

    Thus we poets that have speech,                                             

Unlike what they forests teach,

    If a fluent vein be shown

    That's transcendant to our own,

Criticize, reform, or preach,

Or censure what we cannot reach.