132 OUE NATIVE SONGSTERS. 



as the song proceeds, fill the wood with their 

 echoes, and are answered repeatedly by kindred 

 voices in far distant trees. 



" If, the quiet brooklet leaving, 



Up the stony vale I wind ; 



Haply half in fancy grieving 



For the shades I leave behind ; 

 By the dusty wayside drear, 

 Nightingales, with joyous cheer, 

 Sing, my sadness to reprove, 

 Gladlier than in cultured grove. 



" Where the thickest boughs are twining 

 Of the greenest, darkest tree. 

 There they plunge — the light declining, 



All may hear, and none may see : 

 Fearless of the passing hoof, 

 Hardly will they fleet aloof; 

 So they live, in modest ways. 

 Trust entire, and ceaseless praise." 



Thus sings the author of the " Christian Year,'^ 

 of our nightingale; and all who have dwelt in 

 places frequented by this bird, have paused to 

 listen to its minstrelsy, sounding from the wood 

 or shrubbery which bordered the highway. Not 

 alone when the shadows of evening have brought 

 their grey colouring to the wood or field, is that 

 strain to be heard ; but even at the brightest horn- 



