Ode to the Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: ‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

To My Book

Though I be but a book, One leaf a meadow be, I’ll take my place in the vale, With horses, trees and the wind’s decree, And all things wild and free.

• Ben Jonson