We loved our nightjar, but she would not stay with us. <br />We had found her lying as dead, but soft and warm, <br />Under the apple tree beside the old thatched wall. <br />Two days we kept her in a basket by the fire, <br />Fed her, and thought she well might live – till suddenly <br />I the very moment of most confiding hope <br />She arised herself all tense, qivered and drooped and died. <br />Tears sprang into my eyes- why not? The heart of man <br />Soon sets itself to love a living companion, <br />The more so if by chance it asks some care of him. <br />And this one had the kind of loveliness that goes <br />Far deeper than the optic nerve- full fathom five <br />To the soul’socean cave, where Wonder and Reason <br />Tell their alternate dreams of how the world was made. <br />So wonderful she was-her wings the wings of night <br />But powdered here and therewith tiny golden clouds <br />And wave-line markings like sea-ripples on the sand. <br />O how I wish I might never forget that bird- <br />Never! <br /> But even now, like all beauty of earth, <br />She is fading from me into the dusk of Time.<br /><br />Sir Henry Newbolt<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-nightjar/
