A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 93 



falls, the purity, the ringing brilliance of it ; its 

 variety and depth ; more than all, those marvellous 

 stealing, swelling, dwelling, long-drawn notes, the 

 only crescendo there is in bird music. All go to make 

 the first nightingale's song a mark, perhaps the 

 clearest, in the calendar of the natural year. There 

 are some human voices which recall the quality of 

 the sound not those of the concert-room race. 



She sings on Philomela for ever, in spite of all 

 miserable naturalists a song and then a silence, to 

 make the next strain the sweeter ; until another voice 

 from beyond the firs shrills in her pauses ; and soon 

 a third comes fainter from the copse below the 

 meadows. All night they will sing ; and to-morrow 

 forenoon or afternoon, the woods will hear them 

 through the daylight din of thrush and blackbird, 

 finch and wood-dove, till darkness brings silence for 

 the tireless song. I listen long, then shift a cramped 

 foot, and she hears me. She scolds for a moment 

 with a harsh, croaking note, and after a minute's 

 silence I hear her beyond the garden begin again 

 that irresistible stealing sweetness ; and not to listen 

 all night I turn to the lights of the house, questioning 

 whether Gervase French might not draw some science 

 of prosody from that chant, or whether the passionate 

 air did not rather belong to the old days, when 



