THE NIGHTINGALE 29 



in the forest, but the guests are not the same. Youth 

 has invited other guests to sail in his ilower-wreathed 

 boat, \\1ulst we, the ekler ones remain on the banks 

 of the river, tired and disenchanted, the merry skiff sails 

 away, and the chorus of the nightingales which it carries 

 along, grows fainter and fainter as it disajDpears in the 

 distance finally dying completely away in the dark- 

 ness 



It is not youth that dies away, it is we who disap- 

 pear; the song of the nightingale is eternal, but where 

 are the birds that sang it twenty years ago ? The di- 

 vine strain itself lasts but a short time every year, 

 hardly two months from Saint-George's to Saint- John's 

 day. After midsummer, the nightingale sings no more. 

 The young are hatched and the cares and preoccupa- 

 tions of material existence put a stop to the poet's inspi- 

 ration. Their notes are now harsh, being a sort of plaintive 

 jarring, snapping noise : these last sounds seem intended 

 for menace and defiance. The representation is over, the 

 foot lights are put out, the marvelous artist leaves the 

 scene of his triumphs, and carrying his starving brood 

 away with him, he takes his flight towards neighbouring- 

 fields and bushes where he will find a more plentiful pro- 

 vision of worms. When you meet him bv chance in au- 

 tunm , fluttering widly across some solitaiv footpath, 

 you will scarcely recognize in that siiciil bird with its 

 livery of a dull biownish grey, the dazzling singer of those 



