134 OUR N.\TIVE SONGSTERS. 



" We may not thus profane 

 Nature's sweet voices, always full of love 

 And joyance ! 'tis the merry nightingale, 

 That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates 

 With fast thick warble his delicious notes. 

 As he were fearful that an April night 

 Would be too short for him to utter forth 

 His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul 

 Of all its music. 



"Far and near, 

 In wood and thicket, over the wide grove 

 They answer and provoke each other's songs, 

 With skirmish and capricious passagings, 

 And murmui-s musical, and swift jug, jug, 

 And one low piping sound, more sweet than all. 

 Stirring the air with, such wild harmony, 

 That should you close your eyes, you might almost 

 Forget it was not day." 



The low, piping, melodious strain which the poet 

 describes as varying tlie jug, jug, jug of the 

 nightingale, is well expressed by its rustic term 

 of blowing. But most persons who have listened 

 often to the bird, will admit with the son of the 

 poet, Hartley Coleridge, that at times, at least, 



" Ne'er on earth was sound of mirth 

 So like to melancholy." 



Both old and modern poets have been undoubtedly 

 influenced by their classic associations, in pro- 



