Page:Under the Sun.djvu/90

66 overhead. The little birds are slipping into the bushes, where they will pass the hours of sleep; while from everywhere come the voices of Nature making arrangements for the night.

One little bird closes the day with a song of thanks. He is a sweet little songster — do you know him? — a dapper bird, dressed, as a gentleman should be in the evening, in black and white, with a shapely figure, a neatly turned tail, and all the gestures of a bird of the world. Choosing a low bough, one well leafed, he screens himself from the world, and for an hour pours out upon the hot evening air a low, sweet, throbbing song. He appears to sing unconsciously: his notes run over of their own accord, without any effort. The bird rather thinks aloud in song than sings. I have seen him warbling in the wildest, poorest corner, the knuckle-end of the garden. At first I thought he was all alone. But soon I saw sitting above him, with every gesture of interested attention, two crested bulbuls, the nightingales of Hafiz. They were listening to the little solitary minstrel, recognizing in the pied songster a master of their song. And so he went on singing to his pretty audience until the moon began to rise. And with a sudden rush from behind the citrons’ shade the night-jar tumbled out upon the evening air.