[THE NIGHTINGALE:
CONTINUED. ]
The hours of silence are not barren for the nightingale. He gathers his ideas and reflects; he broods over the songs which he has heard or has himself attempted; he modifies and improves them with perfect tact and taste. For the false notes of an ignorant master he substitutes ingenious and harmonious variations. The imperfect strain which he has learned, but has not repeated, he then reproduces; but made indeed his own, appropriated by his own genius, and converted into a nightingale's melody.
"Do not be discouraged," says a quaint old writer, "if the young bird be not willing to repeat your lesson, and continue to warble; soon he will show you that he has not forgotten the lessons received in autumn and winter—a fit season for meditation, owing to the length of the nights; he will repeat them in the spring-time."
It is very interesting to follow, during the winter, the nightingale's thoughts, in his darkened cage, wrapped round with a green cloth, which partially deceives his gaze, and reminds him of his forest. In December he begins to dream aloud, to descant, to describe in pathetic notes the things passing before his mind—the loved and absent objects. Mayhap he then forgets that migration has been forbidden him, and thinks he has arrived in Africa or in Syria, in lands lighted by a more generous sun. It may be that he sees this sun; sees the rose reblossom, and recommences for her, as say the Persian poets, his hymn of impossible love,—"O sun! O sea! O rose!"—(Rückert.)
For myself, I believe simply that this noble and pathetic hymn, with its lofty accent, is nought else but himself, his life of love and combat, his nightingale's drama. He beholds the woods, the beloved object which transfigures them. He sees her tender vivacity, and the thousand graces of the winged life which we are unable to perceive. He speaks to her; she answers him. He takes upon himself two characters, and, to the full, sonorous voice of the male, replies in soft, brief utterances. What then? I doubt not that already the rapturousness of his life breaks upon him—the tender intimacy of the nest, the little lowly dwelling which would have been his Eden. He believes in it; he shuts his eyes, and completes the illusion. The egg is hatched; his Yule-tide miracle disclosed; his son issues forth—the future nightingale, even at its birth sublimely melodious. He listens ecstatically, in the night of his gloomy cage, to the future song of his offspring.
And all this, to be sure, passes before him in a poetical confusion, where obstacles and strife break up and disturb love's festival. No happiness here below is pure. A third intervenes. The captive in his solitude grows irritated and eager; he struggles visibly against his unseen adversary—that other, the unworthy rival which is present to his mind.
The scene is developed before him, just as it would have transpired in spring, when the male birds returning, towards March or April, and before the re-appearance of the hens, resolve to decide among themselves their great duel of jealousy. For when the latter arrive, all must be calm and peaceful; there should prevail nothing but love, tranquillity, and tenderness. The battle endures some fifteen days; and if the female birds return sooner, the effort grows deadly. The story of Roland is literally realized; he sounded his ivory horn, even to the extinction of strength and life. These, too, sing until their last breath—until death: they will triumph or die.