Was it I, who believed that within my time
The moon coexistent with my ruinous
State, and the bright contemporary nightingale
Would fail; the moon to mathematical d**h,
And the haunted bird from want of breath.
Who will spread my rumours, noting the exact
Date, when the great satellites crash to their fall,
When the land settles, and empty sky regains
Its cloudy impotence - O who will tell?
Not under this moon, not the nightingale will -
This was never a century of the true
Melancholy, the thickets are factories;
The voice of the motor is the voice
Of the greater; the voice of the lesser bird
Is the cla**ic voice unheard.
The moon with the landscape of its eye
Would further the range of the nightingale's note;
Never the words in the human throat. But I,
Know the shaky cries of the new world bird as frail,
Never the cries of the nightingale.