The Darksome Nightingale

Why dost thou, darksome Nightingale,     Sing so distractingly--and here?     Dawn's preludings prick my ear,     Faint light is creeping up the vale,     While on these dead thy rarer     Song falls, dark night-farer.     Were it not better thou shouldst sing     Where the drenched lilac droops her plume,     Spreading frail banners of perfume?     Or where the easeless pines enring     The river-lulld village     Whose lads the lilac pillage?     Oh, if aught songful these hid bones     Might reach, like the slow subtle rain,     Surely the dead had risen again     And listened, white by the white stones;     Back to rich life song-charmed,     By ghostly joys alarmed.     This may not be. And yet, oh still     Pour like night dew thy richer speech     Some late-lost youth perchance to reach,     Or unloved girl; and stir and fill     Their passionless cold bosoms     Under red wallflower blossoms!