The Nightingale's Nest Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDCEFGEFGHIJHIJKKL KMHNNMHLOPQROSTTUTTU VSUVETEWTXWXBYZCYZCC A2B2C2A2B2C2D2TE2D2F 2D2G2TLLTTH2I2I2H2TB TCH2J2K2H2J2G2G2Up this green woodland ride let's softly rove | A |
And list the nightingale she dwells just here | B |
Hush let the wood gate softly clap for fear | C |
The noise might drive her from her home of love | D |
For here I've heard her many a merry year | C |
At morn at eve nay all the live long day | E |
As though she lived on song This very spot | F |
Just where that old man's beard all wildly trails | G |
Rude arbours o'er the road and stops the way | E |
And where that child its blue bell flowers hath got | F |
Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails | G |
There have I hunted like a very boy | H |
Creeping on hands and knees through matted thorn | I |
To find her nest and see her feed her young | J |
And vainly did I many hours employ | H |
All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn | I |
And where those crimping fern leaves ramp among | J |
The hazel's under boughs I've nestled down | K |
And watched her while she sung and her renown | K |
Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird | L |
Should have no better dress than russet brown | K |
Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy | M |
And feathers stand on end as 'twere with joy | H |
And mouth wide open to release her heart | N |
Of its out sobbing songs The happiest part | N |
Of summer's fame she shared for so to me | M |
Did happy fancies shapen her employ | H |
But if I touched a bush or scarcely stirred | L |
All in a moment stopt I watched in vain | O |
The timid bird had left the hazel bush | P |
And at a distance hid to sing again | Q |
Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves | R |
Rich Ecstasy would pour its luscious strain | O |
Till envy spurred the emulating thrush | S |
To start less wild and scarce inferior songs | T |
For while of half the year Care him bereaves | T |
To damp the ardour of his speckled breast | U |
The nightingale to summer's life belongs | T |
And naked trees and winter's nipping wrongs | T |
Are strangers to her music and her rest | U |
Her joys are evergreen her world is wide | V |
Hark there she is as usual let's be hush | S |
For in this black thorn clump if rightly guest | U |
Her curious house is hidden Part aside | V |
These hazel branches in a gentle way | E |
And stoop right cautious 'neath the rustling boughs | T |
For we will have another search to day | E |
And hunt this fern strewn thorn clump round and round | W |
And where this reeded wood grass idly bows | T |
We'll wade right through it is a likely nook | X |
In such like spots and often on the ground | W |
They'll build where rude boys never think to look | X |
Aye as I live her secret nest is here | B |
Upon this white thorn stump I've searched about | Y |
For hours in vain There put that bramble by | Z |
Nay trample on its branches and get near | C |
How subtle is the bird she started out | Y |
And raised a plaintive note of danger nigh | Z |
Ere we were past the brambles and now near | C |
Her nest she sudden stops as choking fear | C |
That might betray her home So even now | A2 |
We'll leave it as we found it safety's guard | B2 |
Of pathless solitudes shall keep it still | C2 |
See there she's sitting on the old oak bough | A2 |
Mute in her fears our presence doth retard | B2 |
Her joys and doubt turns every rapture chill | C2 |
Sing on sweet bird may no worse hap befall | D2 |
Thy visions than the fear that now deceives | T |
We will not plunder music of its dower | E2 |
Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall | D2 |
For melody seems hid in every flower | F2 |
That blossoms near thy home These harebells all | D2 |
Seem bowing with the beautiful in song | G2 |
And gaping cuckoo flower with spotted leaves | T |
Seems blushing of the singing it has heard | L |
How curious is the nest no other bird | L |
Uses such loose materials or weaves | T |
Its dwelling in such spots dead oaken leaves | T |
Are placed without and velvet moss within | H2 |
And little scraps of grass and scant and spare | I2 |
What scarcely seem materials down and hair | I2 |
For from men's haunts she nothing seems to win | H2 |
Yet Nature is the builder and contrives | T |
Homes for her children's comfort even here | B |
Where Solitude's disciples spend their lives | T |
Unseen save when a wanderer passes near | C |
That loves such pleasant places Deep adown | H2 |
The nest is made a hermit's mossy cell | J2 |
Snug lie her curious eggs in number five | K2 |
Of deadened green or rather olive brown | H2 |
And the old prickly thorn bush guards them well | J2 |
So here we'll leave them still unknown to wrong | G2 |
As the old woodland's legacy of song | G2 |
John Clare
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