The Nightingale

“The wonderful images of this poem express a spirituality of passionate yearning and speak to the human heart today no less profoundly than they did in the thirteenth century. It is certainly one of the masterpieces of late medieval mystical poetry, which, until now, has been virtually unknown except to specialists. How blessed we are to have Fr. Robert, whose command of medieval Latin and whose ability to translate these texts so freely has made this mystical work accessible to the contemporary reader. It is a gift to the church, to the literary world, and indeed to all who seek God.”


—John Herbert, OSB, Abbot/Director, Benedictine Community, Holy Trinity Abbey





“We are in the hands of a master here. Robert Nixon, a musician, a Latinist, and above all a praying, earnest monk, has mediated to us, with great sensitivity to rhythm, and to the transactions between Latin and English, the Bonaventuran Philomela, a conspiration of the song of a dying Nightingale, the passion of Jesus, and the journey of the soul to God. I applaud among other things Nixon’s exquisite evangelization of the English language.”


—Anna M. Silvas, University of New England, Australia