166 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



" Cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded," 



"Before the spirit-sighted countenance 

 Of Milton didst thou pass from that sad scene 

 Beyond whose night he saw with a dejected mein." 



And what a starry " night " was that thou didst disclose to 

 him ! How great a firmament, moving and mingled, popu- 

 lous with burning spheres ! And what a dawn is that which 

 has leaped forth from it in flames, in purple, and in music 

 over Earth ! "We see it to have been both with Milton and 

 his own loved Philomel, that their midnight song 



-begins anew 



Its strain when other harmonies stopt short 

 Leave the dinned air vibrating silvery." 



To both, the prerogative has been given, as a dominion over 

 that ominous, awful pause 'twixt Life and Light, 



" To satiate the hungry dark with melody." 



With both it is a solemn minstrelsy solemn and liquid from 

 its shadowy source pregnant and high as prophesy. The 

 Nightingale 



" The light- winged Driad of the trees," 



sitting and singing 'neath the moon, will make the long- 

 drawn shades to stir, and night's deep bosom palpitate with 

 bliss. In its rapt song, fluent and rounded like the roll 

 of waters going free, the fountain of its heart comes forth 

 now the tide is full and slow, up-swelling through the dusky 

 void then it is rippled out in low, sweet laughings, and 

 again bursts in the shrilly ring of jubilant loudest sympho- 

 nies. What a joy it is beneath the " visiting moon," 



" The singing of that happy nightingale 

 In this sweet forest, from the golden close 

 Of evening, till the star of dawn may fail, 

 Thus interfused upon the silentness." 



