Nightingales and Larks

How long hast thou poured out thy nightly tune,Worshipper of the moon!From the old time, whose clouds have borne awayThe memories of thy lay?Well hast thou left thy nest,Built midst the trees which crestOur ancient cities' ruins—hurrying farFrom the dark haunts, where owls and ravens are;Thy soul is by sweet witchery inspired—Thrilling, but never tired;It flashes in the eye, it wakes the lyreWith transports' fever' d fire;With tears hot-burning, the sad heart it sears—False are the transports, cowardly the tears;Transports and tears in days like these—That only tell of our degeneracies!Nay! we will have no song, no chant, no chime,But those which echo the departed time:And what are ye but plunderers of the dead,Stealers of corpses from their slumbering bed?Thou bring' st them from the lonely nightInto the morning light,The long departed centuries;And thou wouldst garland theseWith laurels,—I will take no shareIn such a ministration,—'tis a curse—A profanation—murder-stained, and worse;Here mortals pine in gloom and grief and gall,The world is but a general hospital;Contagion spreading here and there,Through the doomed kingdom, festering everywhere!Our country on the altar's footstep lies,A worthless sacrifice.For who that history's dreary page has read,Saw e'er a nation wakened from the dead—Here or elsewhere—ask—and be answered never—If nations, doomed to sleep, must sleep for ever?Ask, in thy misery, restless, anxious, fretful,Will heaven of its own children be forgetful?Ask if there be a sickness, whose conditionIs far beyond the reach of the physician?Ask if there be a curse, whose cure demandsThe heaven's damnation, or earth's hangman's hands:Are these thy songs—are these thy melodies—The music of thy lute strings—these?I ask—and in my misery, floods of tearsBurst from my eyes, and thro' these showers appearsA dream—a shadowy dream—of future years.And thou, sweet tarrying singer of the night,Be silent quite!Thou hast no song of gaiety or gladness,Cease thou thy notes of sadness;They bring no healing to the suffering soul,They will not make the heart that's broken whole.The nightingale belongs to night. But lo!Midnight is passing, and its curtains darkDay draws aside, and now the morning glowBrightens the fields—fly nightingale—and hark!I hear the singing of the morning lark.