Said a people to a poet---" Go out from among us straightway!
 While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine.
There's a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways
 Makes fitter music to our ears than any song of thine!"

The poet went out weeping---the nightingale ceased chanting;
 "Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale, is all thy sweetness done?"
I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting,
 Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun."

The poet went out weeping,---and died abroad, bereft there---
 The bird flew to his grave and died, amid a thousand wails:---
And, when I last came by the place, I swear the music left there
 Was only of the poet's song, and not the nightingale's.