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NIGHTINGALE, KEATS, KHAYYAM, WILDE AND ME
"Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here,
where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow."
- JOHN KEATS "Ode to a nightingale"
That was John Keats, my friend of yore,
Who, fed-up with woes, sought no more,
Seeking recluse with the Nightingale,
Wrote a rapturous song at death's door.
And long before him, another old friend,
Called Omar Khayyam, he too did lend,
His time to this melodious bird,
And wrote a rubai for a dead friend.
After Keats came Oscar Wilde who,
Penned a story of love,
The nightingale, the rose, the morning dew,
And a young scholar's futile vow.
O symbolic creature of purity,
I too, when lonesome,
Search for you in the hope,
Of finding eternity.
