A MIDSUMMER NIGHT 79 



quality of the bird's song, nor that it should have 

 stirred the tongues of men to strophes in many 

 languages. Full, rich, and liquid, the notes fall 

 with a strange loudness into the still night. Yet 

 it is not so much the form of the song itself which is 

 remarkable as the passion with which it seems to 

 thrill. Sweet, sw-e-e-t, sw-e-e-e-t lower and ten- 

 derer the long-drawn-out notes come, the last of 

 the series prolonged till the air vibrates as if a wire 

 had been struck, and the solitary singer seems almost 

 to choke with the overmastering intensity of feeling 

 in the final effort. The stars shine through the 

 feathery branches of the silver birches as you listen ; 

 the hoarse bay of the watch-dog still comes at inter- 

 vals on the breeze ; far down the valley burns the 

 red eye of the railway signal ; in the distance a coal- 

 train is slowly panting southward, a pillar of fire 

 seeming to precede it when the white light from the 

 engine fire shines upon the steam : but the bird still 

 sings on and on. It is lost in a world to which 

 you have no key ; it has not changed its position 

 nor ceased its song since sunset, and it will be singing 

 still with the dawn. Strange infinity of nature ! 

 Thus must its kind have sung here while the name 

 of England was yet unfashioned on men's lips, and 

 it was still a pathless wood to the northern Thames. 

 Thus do the birds sing still on the fringes of modern 

 Babylon, oblivious and indifferent to all that men 

 consider the vast import of the seething life beyond. 

 The nesting season, when the birds sing, is drawing 

 to a close. As the road winds near the copses the 

 voices of other nightingales are heard, but they 

 are not nearly so numerous as a few years ago. 

 The birds are slowly retiring before the growth of 



