The baby, we knew, was very near death.
We lay sleepless in our room overlooking the garden,
and a great moon shone.
Towards midnight a nightingale began to sing.
All night long it trilled and soared in the moonlight,
infinitely sad, infinitely beautiful.
We lay there through it all,
each knowing what the other was thinking,
and the bird sang on, part elegy, part comfort, part
farewell, until the moon failed
and we fell hand in hand into sleep.
In the morning the child had gone.