To the Nightingales. 
By Allingham, William. 


You sweet fastidious nightingales!
The myrtle blooms in Irish vales,
By Avondhu and rich Loch Lene,
Through many a grove and bowerlet green,
Fair-mirrored round the loitering skiff.
The purple peak, the tinted cliff,
The glen where mountain torrents rave,
And foliage blinds their leaping wave,
Broad emerald meadows filled with flowers,
Embosomed ocean-bays are ours
With all their isles; and mystic towers
Lonely and grey, deserted long,
Less sad if they might hear that perfect song!

What scared ye? (ours, I think, of old)
The sombre fowl hatched in the cold?
King Henry's Normans, mailed and stern,
Smiters of galloglas and kern?
Or, most and worst, fraternal feud,
Which sad Irene long hath rued?
Forsook ye, when the Geraldine,
Great chieftan of a glorious line,
Was hunted on his hills and slain,
And, one to France and one to Spain,
The remnant of the race withdrew?
Was it from anarchy ye flew,
And fierce opression's bigot crew,
Wild complaint, and menace hoarse,
Misled, misleading voices, loud and coarse?

Come back, O birds, or come at last!
For Ireland's furious days are past;
And, purged of enmity and wrong,
Her eye, her step, grow calm and strong.
Why should we miss that pure delight?
Brief is the journey, swift the flight;
And Hesper finds no fairer maids
In Spanish bowers or English glades,
No loves more true on any shore,
No lovers loving music more.
Melodious Erin, warm of heart,
Entreats you; stay not then apart,
But bid the merles and throstles know
(And ere another May-time go)
Their place is in the second row.
Come to the west, dear nightingales!
The rose and myrtle bloom in Irish vales.