The Sad Nightingale

Pulter’s poem follows the Italian poet Petrarch and several English authors in using the nightingale as a figure of mourning and sorrow. Compare Pulter’s lines 15-18 to the following sonnets by Petrarch and Milton.

Petrarch,
Sonnet 311: Quel rosignol, che sí soave piagne

That nightingale who weeps so sweetly,
perhaps for his brood, or his dear companion,
fills the sky and country round with sweetness
with so many piteous, bright notes,

and it seems all night he stays beside me,
and reminds me of my harsh fate:
for I have no one to grieve for but myself,
who believed that Death could not take a goddess.

Oh how easy it is to cheat one who feels safe!
Who would have ever thought to see two lights,
clearer than the sun, make earth darken?

Now I know that my fierce fate
wishes me to learn, as I live and weep:
nothing that delights us here is lasting.

Source: A. S. Kline, trans., The Complete Canzoniere, April 2018.

John Milton,
Sonnet 1 (“O Nightingale”)

O Nightingale that on yon blooming spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hopes the Lover’s heart dost fill,
While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill,
Portend success in love. O if Jove’s will
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh;
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief, yet had’st no reason why.
Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

Source: Charles W. Eliot, ed., Complete Poems Written in English (Cambridge, MA: 1909-14).