to the heart of genius during thousands of springs and summers! How many generations have they not charmed with their undying melodies! They would almost seem by their sweetness to have soothed the inexorable powers of Time and Death. Were an old Greek or an ancient Roman to rise from the dust this summer's day-were he to awaken, after ages of sleep, to walk his native soil again, scarce an object on which his eye fell would wear a familiar aspect; scarce a sound which struck his ear but would vibrate there most strangely; yet with the dawn, rising from the plain of Marathon, or the Latin Hills, he would hear the same noble lark which sung in his boyhood; and with the moon, among the olives and ilexes shading the fallen temple, would come the same sweet nightingale which entranced his youth. row. THE NOTE OF THE NIGHTINGALE. A LETTER OF CHARLES JAMES FOX. DEAR GREY-In defense of my opinion about the nightingales, I find Chaucer who of all poets seems to have been the fondest of the singing of birds-calls it a merry note; and though Theocritus mentions nightingales six or seven times, he never mentions their note as plaintive or melancholy. It is true he does not call it anywhere merry, as Chaucer does, but by mentioning it with the song of the blackbird, and as answering it, he seems to imply that it was a cheerful note. Sophocles is against us; but he says, "lamenting Itys," and the comparison of her to Electra is rather as to perseverance, day and night, than as to sorAt all events, a tragic poet is not half so good authority in this question as Theocritus and Chaucer. I can not light upon the passage in the "Odyssey," where Penelope's restlessness is compared to the nightingale, but I am sure it is only as to restlessness that he makes the comparison. If you will read the last twelve books of the "Odyssey" you will certainly find it, and I am sure you will be paid for your hunt, whether you find it or not. The passage in Chaucer is in the "Flower and Leaf." The one I particularly allude to in Theocritus is in his "Epigrams," I think in the fourth. Dryden has transferred the word merry to the goldfinch, in the "Flower and the Leaf"-in deference, may be, to the vulgar error. But pray read his description of the nightingale there; it is quite delightful. I am afraid that I like these researches as much better than those that relate to Shaftesbury and Sunderland, as I do those better than attending the House of Commons. The nightingale with so merry a note I stood astonied, so was I with the song And ayen, me thought, she song ever by mine ear. A goldfinch there I saw, with gaudy pride I stood entranc'd, and had no room for thought; DRYDEN'S "Flower and Leaf." As when the months are clad in flowery green, To vernal airs attunes her varied strains, Now doom'd a wakeful bird to wail the beauteous boy. So in nocturnal solitude forlorn, A sad variety of woes I mourn. Odyssey, Book XIX. SONNET. O, nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray, First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Whether the muse or love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I. JOHN MILTON. THE NIGHTINGALE. APRIL, 1798. No cloud, no relic of the sunken day, I know a grove Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove That should you close your eyes, you might almost Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed, You may, perchance, behold them on the twigs, Lights up her love-torch. A most gentle maid, Who dwelleth in her hospitable home, (Even like a lady, vowed and dedicate To something more than Nature in the grove), Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes, On blossoming twig still swinging from the breeze, Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Oh for a draught of vintage, Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burned mirth! Oh for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth, That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim. Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret; Here, where men sit and hear each other groanWhere palsy shakes a few sad, last gray hairs— Where youth grows pale, and specter-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow, And leaden-eyed despairs; Where beauty can not keep her lustrous eyes, Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of poesy, Though the dull train perplexes and retards; Already with thee tender is the night, And haply the queen-moon is on her throne, Clustered around by all her starry fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I can not see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, And mid-May's oldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of bees on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful death, |