Melancholy Bird

Charlotte Smith, Sonnet III., To A Nightingale:

            Poor melancholy bird—that all night long
            Tell’st to the Moon thy tale of tender woe;
            From what sad cause can such sweet sorrow flow,
            And whence this mournful melody of song?
            Thy poet’s musing fancy would translate
            What mean the sounds that swell thy little breast,
            When still at dewy eve thou leav’st thy nest,
            Thus to the listening night to sing thy fate!
            Pale Sorrow’s victims wert thou once among,
            Tho’ now releas’d in woodlands wild to rove?
            Say—hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong,
            Or died’st thou—martyr of disastrous love?
            Ah! songstress sad! that such my lot might be,
            To sigh and sing at liberty—like thee!

In Yourself Encased

Fyodor Tyutchev, Silentium, tr. Anatoly Liberman (in his On the Heights of Creation):

                Speak not, lie deep, do not reveal
                Things that you wish or things you feel;
                Within your soul's protected mine
                Let them ascend and then decline
                Like silent stars in heaven bleak:
                Admire their sheen—but do not speak.

                How can a heart be put in words?
                By others—how can one be heard?
                Will people know what you live by?
                A thought expressed becomes a lie.
                Don't muddy springs that are unique:
                Drink from their depth—but do not speak.

                Live only in yourself encased;
                Your soul contains a world of chaste,
                Mysterious thoughts, which outside noise
                Robs of their magic and destroys;
                The rays of morning make them weak—
                Enjoy their song—but do not speak!