Ah, bird, our love is never spent with your clear note, nor satiate our soul; not song, not wail, not hurt, but just a call summons us with its simple top-note and soft fall;

not to some rarer heaven of lilies over-tall, nor tuberose set against some sun-lit wall, but to a gracious cedar-palace hall;

not marble set with purple hung with roses and tall sweet lilies such as the nightingale would summon for us with her wail (surely only unhappiness could thrill such a rich madrigal!) not she, the nightingale can fill our souls with such a wistful joy as this:

nor, bird, so sweet was ever a swallow note not hers, so perfect with the wing of lazuli and bright breast nor yet the oriole filling with melody from her fiery throat some island-orchard in a purple sea.

Ah dear, ah gentle bird, you spread warm length of crimson wool and tinted woven stuff for us to rest upon, nor numb with ecstasy nor drown with death:

only you soothe, make still the throbbing of our brain: so through her forest trees, when all her hope was gone and all her pain, Calypso heard your call across the gathering drift of burning cedar-wood, across the low-set bed of wandering parsley and violet, when all her hope was dead.