IO4 



THE NIGHTINGALE VALLEY 



BY the first day of May, through all Western 

 Europe and Asia Minor, from the groves of " old 

 Colonus " and the temples of Baal-bee, to the valleys 

 of Andalusia and the coombs of the Surrey hills, the 

 nightingales are in song, awakening, as they have for a 

 thousand summers, the fancies of dreaming poets and 

 the delight of the least imaginative of mankind. The 

 poets of old set their own interpretation on the song 

 of the nightingale. To them it was ever the voice of 

 lamentation and mourning ; Philomel weeps for Itys, 

 and never varies the refrain. Modern fancy is truer to 

 the facts of Nature To us, as to Keats, the nightingale 



is the 



" Light-winged Dryad of the trees, 

 In some melodious plot 

 Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 

 Singing of summer in full-throated ease." 



In a side-glen of the Surrey hills, running down to 

 the deep stream of the River Wey, lies the Nightingale 

 Valley. Two tiny streams cut their way down the 

 steep and sandy hills, and unite in a pool which almost 

 fills the bottom of the hollow. The granary and 



