Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/97

84 stillness of the balmy night, has been almost universally admired; but whether the notes are plaintive and melancholy, or cheerful and sprightly, opinions are divided. The former epithets are the most commonly applied to them, especially by the poets, who were perhaps influenced by their classic recollections. As an example of the latter judgment, Coleridge may be quoted:—

"A melancholy bird! O idle thought! In nature there is nothing melancholy: But some night-wandering man, whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, Or slow distemper, or neglected love, (And so, poor wretch! fill'd all things with himself And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale Of his own sorrow,) he, and such as he, First named these notes a melancholy strain, And many a poet echoes the conceit. We have learnt A different lore: we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance! Tis the merry nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music! ......   ....Far and near In wood and thicket over the wide grove They answer and provoke each other's songs, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical, and swift 'jug, jug,' And one low piping sound more sweet than all, Stirring the air with such a harmony, That should you close your eyes you might almost Forget it was not day."

But perhaps these opinions are not irreconcileable; for, as the Abbé La Pluche says, "the Nightingale passes from grave to gay, from a