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TURDUS MUSICUS. 257 



In every glen the mavis sang, 



All Nature listening seemed the while, 

 Except where greenwood echoes rang, 



Among the braes o' Ballochmyle." 



As in " Queen Mary's Lament" he also says — 



" The mavis wild, ivi' mom/ a note, 

 Sings droivsy day to rest." 



And in Cluden's woods he bids us — 



" Hark, the mavis' evening sang 

 Sounding Cluden's woods amang 



What can be finer than his rhymed picture of the lark's 

 early song, and the mavis' late one, " that hails the nicht fa,' " 

 in his exquisite pathetic song of " My Nannie's awa ?" — 



" Thou laverock that springs from the dews of the lawn, 

 The shepherd to warn o' the grey breaking dawn ; 

 And thou, mellow mavis that hails the nicht ja\ 

 Give over for pity — my Nannie's awa." 



Which Wordsworth seems to have copied when writing — 



"Thou thrush that singest loud, and loud and free, 

 Into yon row of willows flit, 

 Upon that alder sit, 

 Or sing another song, or choose another tree." 



Or, as Burns more cheerfully sings of the lass " On Cessnock 

 Banks "— 



" Her voice is like the evening thrush 



That sings on Cessnock Banks unseen, 

 While his mate sits nestling in the bush ; 

 And she 's twa glancing, sparkling een." 



He even goes the length of coupling the evening song of the 

 mavis with the nightly hooting of the owl, for he says — 



" Ah no, sad owl ! nor is thy voice less sweet 

 That sadness tunes it, and that grief is there, 

 Nor that the thrush deserts the evening spray, 

 When darkness calls thee from thy reverie." 



Indeed he claims the evening song of the thrush as one of his 

 feathered teachers, for in the " Brigs of Ayr" he says — 



" The simple bard, rough, at the rustic plough, 

 Learning his tuneful trade from every bough ; 

 The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush, 

 Hailing the setting sun, sweet in the green thorn bush." 



So that if our " evening thrush," when " singing droivsy day 

 to rest," " hailing the setting sun" and " hailing the nicht fcC" be 

 not the mission of the nightingale, I know not what is. Burns 

 has hit the mark in our mavis, and if he does not mention the 



