Classic Poem

The speckled bird sings in the tree
When all the stars are silver-pale.
Come, children, walk the night with me,
And we shall hear the nightingale.

The nightingale is a shy bird,
He flits before you through the night.
And now the sleepy vale is stirred
Through all its green and gold and white.

The moon leans from her place to hear,
The stars shed golden star-dust down,
For now comes in the sweet o' the year,
The country's gotten the greenest gown.

The blackbird turns upon his bed,
The thrush has oped a sleeping eye,
Quiet each downy sleepy-head;
But who goes singing up the sky?

It is, it is the nightingale,
In the tall tree upon the hill.
To moonlight and the dewy vale
The nightingale will sing his fill.

He's but a homely, speckled bird,
But he has gotten a golden flute,
And when his wondrous song is heard,
Blackbird and thrush and lark are mute.

Troop, children dear, out to the night,
Clad in the moonlight silver-pale,
And in the world of green and white
'Tis you shall hear the nightingale.