BIRDS. 189 
O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray 
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, 
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill, 
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May, 
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, 
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, 
Portend success in love. Oh, if Jove's will 
Have link'd that amorous power to thy soft lay, 
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate 
Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh ; 
As thou from year to year hast sung too late 
For my relief, yet hadst no reason why : 
Whether the muse, or love, call thee his mate, 
Both them I serve, and of their train am I. 
MILTON. 
Now is the pleasant time, 
The cool, the silent, save where silence yields 
To the night-warbling bird, that, now awake, 
Tunes sweetest his love-laboured song. MILTON. 
How all things listen while thy muse complains, 
Such silence waits on Philomela's strains, 
In some still evening, when the whispering breeze 
Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees. 
POPE. 
Ah ! why thus abandoned to darkness and woe ? 
Why thus, lonely Philomel, flows thy sad strain ? 
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow ; 
And thy bosom no trace of misfortune retain. 
Yet, if pity inspire thee, O cease not thy lay ! 
Mourn, sweetest companion ! man calls thee to mourn : 
O soothe him whose pleasures, like thine, pass away ! 
Full quickly they pass, but they never return ! 
BEATTIE. 
There 's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream, 
And the Nightingale sings round it all the year long ; 
In the days of my childhood, 'twas like a sweet dream 
To sit in the roses, and hear the bird's song. 
