I loved thee,—­hark, one tenderer note than all—­
Atthis, of old time, once—­one low long fall,
Sighing—­one long low lovely loveless call,
Dying—­one pause in song so flamelike fast—­
Atthis, long since in old time overpast—­
One soft first pause and last. 
One,—­then the old rage of rapture’s fieriest rain
Storms all the music-maddened night again.

Child of God, close craftswoman, I beseech thee,
Bid not ache nor agony break nor master,
Lady, my spirit—­
O thou her mistress, might her cry not reach thee? 
Our Lady of all men’s loves, could Love go past her,
Pass, and not hear it?

She hears not as she heard not; hears not me,
O treble-natured mystery,—­how should she
Hear, or give ear?—­who heard and heard not thee;
Heard, and went past, and heard not; but all time
Hears all that all the ravin of his years
Hath cast not wholly out of all men’s ears
And dulled to death with deep dense funeral chime
Of their reiterate rhyme. 
And now of all songs uttering all her praise,
All hers who had thy praise and did thee wrong,
Abides one song yet of her lyric days,
Thine only, this thy song.

O soul triune, woman and god and bird,
Man, man at least has heard. 
All ages call thee conqueror, and thy cry
The mightiest as the least beneath the sky
Whose heart was ever set to song, or stirred
With wind of mounting music blown more high
Than wildest wing may fly,
Hath heard or hears,—­even AEschylus as I.
But when thy name was woman, and thy word
Human,—­then haply, surely then meseems
This thy bird’s note was heard on earth of none,
Of none save only in dreams. 
In all the world then surely was but one
Song; as in heaven at highest one sceptred sun
Regent, on earth here surely without fail
One only, one imperious nightingale. 
Dumb was the field, the woodland mute, the lawn
Silent; the hill was tongueless as the vale
Even when the last fair waif of cloud that felt
Its heart beneath the colouring moonrays melt,
At high midnoon of midnight half withdrawn,
Bared all the sudden deep divine moondawn. 
Then, unsaluted by her twin-born tune,
That latter timeless morning of the moon
Rose past its hour of moonrise; clouds gave way
To the old reconquering ray,
But no song answering made it more than day;
No cry of song by night
Shot fire into the cloud-constraining light. 
One only, one AEolian island heard
Thrill, but through no bird’s throat,
In one strange manlike maiden’s godlike note,
The song of all these as a single bird. 
Till the sea’s portal was as funeral gate
For that sole singer in all time’s ageless date
Singled and signed for so triumphal fate,
All nightingales but one in all the world
All her sweet life were silent; only then,
When her life’s wing of womanhood was furled,