The Riddlers

"Thou solitary!" the Blackbird cried, "I, from the happy Wren, Linnet and Blackcap, Woodlark, Thrush, Perched all upon a sweetbrier bush, Have come at cold of midnight-tide To ask thee, Why and when Grief smote thy heart so thou dost sing In solemn hush of evening, So sorrowfully, lovelorn Thing - Nay, nay, not sing, but rave, but wail, Most melancholic Nightingale? Do not the dews of darkness steep All pinings of the day in sleep? Why, then, when rocked in starry nest We mutely couch, secure, at rest, Doth thy lone heart delight to make Music for sorrow's sake?" A Moon was there. So still her beam, It seemed the whole world lay in dream, Lulled by the watery sea. And from her leafy night-hung nook Upon this stranger soft did look The Nightingale: sighed he: - "'Tis strange, my friend; the Kingfisher But yestermorn conjured me here Out of his green and gold to say Why thou, in splendour of the noon, Wearest of colour but golden shoon, And else dost thee array In a most sombre suit of black? 'Surely,' he sighed, 'some load of grief, Past all our thinking - and belief - Must weigh upon his back!' Do, then, in turn, tell me, If joy Thy heart as well as voice employ Why dost thou now most Sable, shine In plumage woefuller far than mine? Thy silence is a sadder thing Than any dirge I sing!" Thus, then, these two small birds, perched there, Breathed a strange riddle both did share Yet neither could expound. And we - who sing but as we can, In the small knowledge of a man - Have we an answer found? Nay, some are happy whose delight Is hid even from themselves from sight; And some win peace who spend The skill of words to sweeten despair Of finding consolation where Life has but one dark end; Who, in rapt solitude, tell o'er A tale as lovely as forlore, Into the midnight air.