The Nightingale in English Poetry

The very word Nature is enough to make a romantic poet oblivious of this world. Thus it is no wonder if he reaches poetic heights when the sweet voice of singing birds falls upon his ears. While mostly an Eastern poet is fascinated by the swan’s beauty, the peacock’s grace or the cuckoo’s melodious voice, it is the nightingale’s melody that has captured the Western poets. This singing bird has offered a marvellous theme to many English poets, though their angles of vision differ from one another. According to ancient Greeks, the bird is a symbol of melancholy and many poets followed this path; but to some ears, it is melodious and happy.

There is a story in Greek mythology about the nightingale. Philomela was the daughter of the King of Athens. Her sister Procne married Tereus, the king of Thrace. Once, when Procne desired the company of her sister Philomela, Tereus took her father’s permission and started with Philomela to the place of Procne. But enamoured of her on the way, he forcibly seduced her. Further, he cut off her tongue lest she should disclose his deed to anybody, imprisoned her and then informed Procne that Philomela died. Meanwhile Philomela wrote her entire tale of sorrow and sent it to Procne. In order to take revenge upon him, Procne killed her son and fed Tereus on the flesh of his body. Then intending to punish both the sisters, he took out his sword. But at once all were converted into forms of different birds. It was Philomela who assumed the form of nightingale. Thus, to the ancient Greeks, the singing of the nightingale was melancholic.

Adopting this symbol of sorrow, poets like Matthew Arnold and Robert Bridges gave poetic expression to their feelings about the nightingale. In his poem “Philomela”, Matthew Arnold first asks us to listen to the singing of “the tawny-throated” nightingale and addresses it with the phrase, “O wanderer from a Grecian shore.” According to the poet, the nightingale is still suffering from its ‘old-world pain’ in spite of its wanderings in distant lands for many years. Now that the bird has arrived at a spot near the river Thames, the compassionate poet hopes,

.......Can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and night,
And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy racked heart and brain afford no balm?

The poet is sorry that the moonlight there compels the bird to see “the unfriendly place in the Thracian world” and thus brings into memory all its untold sufferings. The poet wonders whether the “Poor Fugitive” feels once again the feathery change which echoes love and hate. To him, “Eternal Passion” and “Eternal Pain” seem to burst forth from the song of the nightingale.

Another poet Robert Bridges finds that nightingales represent poets. His lyric “Nightingales” is in the form of a conversation that might have been held between the poet and nightingales. To begin with, Bridges tries to explore the environment that might be the cause of their beauty and of their melodious music. According to the poet,

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,
And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom
Ye learn your song.

In addition, the starry woods and the flowers blooming in the heavenly air must have made them beautiful. But, the nightingales show how the poet has a false notion. As they say, it is on the “barren mountains” and “spent streams” that they dwelt. Further, their song, though externally appears to be sweet, is “a throe of the heart with pining vision and forbidden hopes.” After pouring their “dark nocturnal secret aloud in the raptured ears of men”, they go to a dreamy world in the dawn.

Another poem worth-mentioning is The Nightningale stated to have been written by R. Barnefield. The poet finds only the nightingale unhappy while May is a merry month to all birds and beasts. He says to the bird,

“Thou mourn’st in vain!
None takes pity on thy pain.”

In this connection, he gives a vivid description of a faithful friend and a flattering foe. Anyway, the poet who visualises sorrow only in the nightingale, must have been influenced by the well-known Greek symbol regarding the bird.

Sir Philip Sidney who died young (1554 – 1586) is another poet who has adopted the Greek symbol. In his poem The Nightingale, he describes that the bird “sings out her woes.” Recalling the Greek story, the poet says,

Her throat in tunes expresseth
What grief her breast oppresseth
For Tereus’ force on her chaste will prevailing.

Then the poet asks “Philomela fair” to take some gladness as it is now his turn to suffer from mental agony.

Next the poet compares the cause of his sorrow with that of the nightingale’s. According to him, “she hath no other cause of anguish, but there is daily craving; and thus his mind is subjected to greater torture, since “wanting is more woe than too much having.”

While thus some poets find the nightingale as the symbol of sorrow, it is a happy bird to poets like William Drummond and S. T. Coleridge. In Drummond’s sonnet To the Nightingale, “It is a ‘sweet bird’ that freely sings in the early hours of winters, fair seasons, bidding sprays, sweet smelling flowers.” Also, its song declares the Creator’s goodness to the world. The melody of the song makes man forget the earth’s turmoils, spites and wrongs and thereby think of God. In his final comment, the poet says,

Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres, yes, and to angel’s lays.

The bird influenced S. T. Coleridge, as a result of which he composed two poems, namely To the Nightingale and The Nightingale. In the first poem, the poet calls the nightingale “Sister of love-lorn poets, Philomela!” According to the poet, its song wakes up his soul and takes him to the world of fancies; and hence, the bird is the “Minstrel of the Moon.”

The other poem, The Nightingale (bigger than the previous one) is a greater mirror to the heart of Coleridge. “Hark! the nightingale begins its song”–thus the unselfish poet invites his friends also to partake the sweetness of the bird’s song. Questioning the popular belief, he says,

“A melancholy bird, Oh! idle thought!
In Nature there is nothing melancholy.”
According to him, the poetic talent of lovers spending their time in dance-halls has to yield to its music. One whole month of April is not adequate for the bird to sing the love song and lighten its heart. Nightingales, while in congregation, sing together and induce one another. It is the shining eyes of the bird that are visible on bushes with the aid of glow-worms. What a happy thing it would be that our childhood grows along with the melodious song of the nightingale! It is beyond expression how much Coleridge is delighted at the bird’s song.

Much more than all these poets, it is perhaps the romantic poet John Keats to whom the nightingale was all fascination. Engrossed by the bird’s song, he made it the theme for his world-famous poem, Ode to a Nightingale. Once enjoying a nightingale song in his home garden at Hampstead, the poet’s heart throbbed; the result was the composition of this beautiful ode. In this ode of eighty lines, Keats addresses the nightingale and lets forth his feelings that are born in the utmost recesses of his heart. Describing himself as one influenced by some dull opiate, he begins with the words, “My heart aches ...” and forgets himself in the world of joy. As the poet says, the bird is “light-winged Dryad of the trees in some melodious plot.” Next the poet aspires for a draught of wine that has cooled in the earth for a long time, as this drink will enable him to leave this troubled world unseen and fade away into the forest; and thus he could partake its bliss. “On the viewless wings of poesy” he wishes to fly to the bird’s place. The influence of the song is so much on the poet that he cannot see the world around him. He feels sorry that his ears are not sensitive enough to enjoy its song. He desires to “become a sod to thy high requiem.” The bird, according to the poet, is immortal and hence its song also. It is a song heard by emperors and clowns in ancient days; a song sung by Ruth sick for home (according to Greek mythology) and also,

The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn.

In the end, the poet is suddenly upset as the bird vanishes. “Was it a vision, or a waking dream?” he does not know.

Thus different poets can have different visions though what they see is birds of one class. Anyway, a great literary feast and enjoyment to all of us!