Like to a swarm of birds, with jarring cries <br />Descend on me my swarming memories; <br />Light mid the yellow leaves, that shake and sigh, <br />Of the bowed alder--that is even I!-- <br />Brooding its shadow in the violet <br />Unprofitable river of Regret. <br />They settle screaming--Then the evil sound, <br />By the moist wind's impatient hushing drowned, <br />Dies by degrees, till nothing more is heard <br />Save the lone singing of a single bird, <br />Save the clear voice--O singer, sweetly done!-- <br />Warbling the praises of the Absent One.... <br />And in the silence of a summer night <br />Sultry and splendid, by a late moon's light <br />That sad and sallow peers above the hill, <br />The humid hushing wind that ranges still <br />Rocks to a whispered sleepsong languidly <br />The bird lamenting and the shivering tree.<br /><br />Paul Verlaine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/le-rossignol/
