“O nightingale, that on yon blooming spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou, with fresh heat, the lover’s heart dost fill,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate——”
And there is another rat-tat!—“Please, sir, missus says, ‘Dinner is all getting cold.’” Still the poet ranges in fairyland—
“——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——”
And now, maybe, it is the pretty mistress who comes with a bounce—“Mr. Milton, are you ever coming?”—and a quick bang of the door, which is a way some excellent petulant young women have of—not breaking the commandments.