De Luscinia / Alcuin: Concerning a Nightingale by Alcuin of York

De Luscinia / Alcuin: Concerning a Nightingale

by Alcuin of York

translated by Maryann Corbett

Jealousy, that’s what it was. It was thin-fingered envy that nabbed you,

stealing away my delight, Nightingale, out of the broom!

Sour as my soul had become, you could fill it with honeying sweetness,

lilting it into my ears, lifting it into my heart.

Come, all you creatures with wings! Let them come from the corners of heaven

adding their grief to my own, singing the song of the muse.

Not much to look at for color, but sound that could carry my heart off:

sound with the breadth of the air poured from your throat’s little strait,

sweetness in dollops and pours and melismas, repeating, renewing,

always a song in your mouth to him who is maker of all.

Everywhere night and its terrible blackness, yet still you were singing,

voice that should still us to prayer, ornament hung on the dark.

Why should we wonder at all at the angels eternally chanting

praise to the Lord of the storm? You could sing endlessly too.