PROSERPINE'S MESSAGE 239 

 The bracken upon the headland has 

 rusted, and the gorse is brown and sapless. 

 Never has there been such an untarnished 

 sky fused with the sea. Those stately 

 swans, the clouds, have sailed over the 

 marge of the earth, leaving not even a downy 

 feather to tell of their heavenly passage. 

 Somewhere in a brake of blackthorn a robin 

 sings frailly, while a red kestrel hangs 

 above for sight of vole or mouse. Croaking 

 deeply a raven wings towards a gully in 

 the mainland where the shepherd pitches 

 his dead sheep. The robin is quiet, and 

 there is no other sound except the croak 

 of the carrion raven : only the mellow sun 

 of autumn, and the grape-frosty air, and the 

 silence. But listen ! that sweet birdsong 

 must surely be of the nightingale. There is 

 the low trill, the fluting cadence, the reedy 

 melody that sinks away into silence. But 

 the nightingale does not come to the West 

 Country; only in my mind do I listen to 

 the old and loved voice. The song of the 



