I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Where these words come from
- 95% sureThese words were traced back to where they first appeared. That source is listed below.
- Ode to a Nightingale (1819); Exact wording and attribution checked. Complete stanza 5: flowers imagined in the darkness around the singing nightingale.
- Ode to a Nightingale (1819)
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