Many poets have perpetuated the odd belief that the mournful notes of the Nightingale are caused by the bird’s leaning against a thorn to sing! Shakespeare, for example, in his “Passionate Pilgrim,” says:
“Everything did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone.
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Lean’d her breast up-till a thorn;
And there sung the dolefull’st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.”
These lines, by the way, although generally attributed to Shakespeare, and included in most editions of his poems, were written, it is said, by Richard Barnefield in 1598, and published by him in a work entitled “Poems in divers humors.”[12] Shakespeare’s Lucrece, however, invoking Philomel, says:
“And whiles against a thorn thou bear’st thy part
To keep thy sharp woes waking.”