Summary

The poem begins with an admiration of the beauty of the nightingale as the bird stirs from the winter quiet as spring begins. The earth's "waking" wakes the nightingale as well, and she begins to sing her mournful song (2). The nightingale's grief from her time as a human, when she was raped by her brother-in-law Tereus, makes her song uniquely tragic.

In the second stanza, the speaker asks Philomela – another name for the nightingale – to "take some gladness" (9). Her sorrow is great, but at least she has a future ahead, while the speaker senses his own "fadeth" (11). His sorrow over his failed love is so great that he feels he is being pierced by a thorn.

He continues to compare himself to Philomela. She has "no other cause of anguish" besides the rape, which caused her great suffering and broke her will (13). The speaker...