THE NIGHT SIDE OF NATURE 89 



From times of earliest literature to Tennyson and 

 Arnold, poets have vied with each other in attempt- 

 ing to reproduce the song of the nightingale. Perhaps 

 Keats, in his inimitable Ode, has most nearly caught 

 the passionate lyricism of the bird. But its song can 

 never be reproduced. Attempt to translate it, and 

 it eludes you only its meagre skeleton remains. 

 Isaac Walton, in his quaint eloquence, tries to say 

 what he felt: " The nightingale, another of my airy 

 creatures, breathes such sweet loud music out of her 

 little instrumental throat that it might make man- 

 kind to think that miracles are not ceased. He that 

 at midnight . . . should hear, as I have very often, 

 the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising 

 and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, 

 might well be lifted above earth, and say, c Lord, 

 what music hast Thou provided for the saints in 

 heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music 

 on earth!'" 



From Walton we come down through three 

 hundred years to Tennyson's 



" Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, 

 Rings Eden through the budded quicks." 



And to Walt Whitman's 



" When the stars glistened, 



All night long, on the prong of a moss-scalloped stake 

 Down, almost among the slapping waves, 

 Sat the lone singer, wonderful, causing tears." 



