The Poet and the Bird

The Poet and the Bird - Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Said a people to a poet---" Go out from among us straightway! While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine. There's a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways Makes fitter music to our ears than any song of thine!" The poet went out weeping---the nightingale ceased chanting; "Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale, is all thy sweetness done?" I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting, Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun." The poet went out weeping,---and died abroad, bereft there--- The bird flew to his grave and died, amid a thousand wails:--- And, when I last came by the place, I swear the music left there Was only of the poet's song, and not the nightingale's.