SONNET [55] LV. The Return of the Nightingale. Written in May, 1791. Charlotte Smith (née Turner) Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
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Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
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Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. N22357 Smith, Charlotte Turner, 1749-1806. Elegiac sonnets, and other poems. By Charlotte Smith. The first Worcester edition, from the sixth London edition, with additions. Printed at Worcester [Mass.] by Isaiah Thomas, sold by him in Worcester, and by said Thomas and Andrews in Boston 1795 p. 75. xix,[2],22-126,[2]p.,[5] leaves of plates: ill.; 15 cm. (12mo)

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SONNET [ 55 ] LV. The Return of the Nightingale . Written in May , 1791. BORNE on the warm wing of the western gale , How tremulously low is heard to float , Thro' the green budding thorns that fringe the vale , The early Nightingale's prelusive note . 'Tis Hope's instinctive pow'r that , thro' the grove , Tells how benignant Heav'n revives the earth ; 'Tis the soft voice of young and timid love That calls these melting sounds of sweetness forth . With transport , once , sweet bird ! I hail'd thy lay , And bade thee welome to our shades again , To charm the wand'ring poet's pensive way , And soothe the solitary lover's pain ; But now ! — such evils in my lot combine , As shut my languid sense , to Hope's dear voice and thine .