Philomel 5 1 



accept the noisy drunkard and the shining stars as 

 phenomena exciting neither sadness nor exultation ; 

 you shall soon discover that the merriment, as the 

 melancholy, of Philomel is but a fancy bred of fable. 

 Of all the epithets applied to him by poets, that one 

 of Shelley's, the ' voluptuous ' nightingale, is the most 

 expressive and exact He exults not, neither grieves, 

 nor sings he from the skylark's joy in being. The 

 least fanciful might be forgiven for imagining that 

 the wind, blowing hither and thither, rustles a sigh 

 of regret out of the summer pines ; that there is 

 ' lamentation and mourning and woe ' in the song of 

 breaking waves. It is not so with the nightingale. 

 His merest ' whit- whit- whit ' in the bush beside one } 

 gives one precisely the same feeling of arrested atten- 

 tion that is imparted by the entrance of a great actor. 

 One low and almost plaintive call he has, as it were a 

 signal to some lost mate ; but the very first note of 

 the prelude to his ' amorous descant ' tells you at once 

 that here is the richest of bird voices, here the perfec- 

 tion of bird music. There is no mistaking its intent. 

 The minstrel celebrates no victory, bewails no loss. 

 It is but a sonnet to his mistress' eyebrow. He sits 

 in a dark bush close beside her, and, with an energy 

 surprising as the sustained magic of the song, he 

 breathes out his dear entreaty and desire. For her 

 alone is the music. From some not distant thicket 

 pour the notes of a rival, whom the strains thrill with 

 jealousy. He stops as if to listen ; the other swain 



