pfani/ aasl 5i>ir^. 139 



climes at tlie season when the Rose begins to blow : hence the 

 legend that the beauteous flower bursts forth from its bud at the 

 song of lis ravished adorer. The Persian poet Jami says, " The 

 Nightingales warbled their enchanting notes and rent the thin veils 

 of the Rose-bud and the Rose ; " and Moore has sung — 



" Oh sooner shall the Rose of May 



Mistake her own sweet Nightingale, 

 And to some meaner minstrel's lay 



Open her bosom's glowing veil, 

 Than love shall ever doubt a tone — 

 A breath — of the beloved one ! " 



And in another place, the author of ' Lalla Rookh ' asks — 



" Though rich the spot 



With every flower the earth hath got, 

 What is it to the Nightingale, 



If there his darling Rose is not ? " 



Lord Byron has alluded to this pretty conceit in the * Giaour,' 

 when he sings — 



" The Rose o'er crag or vale, 

 Sultana of the Nightingale, 



The maid for whom his melody, 

 His thousand songs are heard on high, 

 Blooms blushing to her lover's tale, 

 His queen, the garden queen, his Rose, 

 Unbent by winds, unchill'd by snows." 



From the verses of the poet Jami may be learnt how the first 

 Rose appeared in Gulistan at the time when the flowers, dissatisfied 

 with the reign of the torpid Lotus, who would slumber at night, 

 demanded a new sovereign from Allah. At first the Rose queen 

 was snowy white, and guarded by a protecfting circlet of Thorns; 

 but the amorous Nightingale fell into such a transport of love over 

 her charms, and so recklessly pressed his ravished heart against the 

 cruel Thorns, that his blood trickling into the lovely blossom's 

 bosom, dyed it crimson ; and, in corroboration of this, the poet 

 demands, " Are not the petals white at the extremity where the 

 poor little bird's blood could not reach?" Perhaps this Eastern 

 poetic legend may have given rise to the belief, which has long been 

 entertained, that the Nightingale usually sleeps on, or with its 

 bosom against, a Thorn, under the impression that in such a painful 

 situation it must remain awake. Young, in his ' Night Thoughts,' 

 thus refers to this curious idea — 



" Griefs sharpest Thorn hard-pressing on my breast, 

 I share with wakeful melody to cheer 

 The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel ! like thee. 

 And call the stars to listen." 



And in Thomson's * Hymn to May,' we find this allusion : — 



"The lowly Nightingale, 

 A Thorn her pillow, trills her doleful tale." 



