(6) And o'er her sense as when the fond night bird
Woos the full rose o'erpowering fragrance stole.
This allusion must be familiar to every general reader of poetry.
"The nightingale if he sees the rose becomes intoxicated; he lets
go from his hand the reins prudence."
Fable of the Gardener and Nightingale.
Lady Montague also translates a song, if my memory does not deceive me, thus,
"The nightingale now hovers amid the flowers, her passion is to
seek roses."
And from the poet Hafiz,
"When the roses wither and the bower loses its sweetness, you have no longer the tale of the nightingale."
Indeed the rose, in Oriental poetry, is seldom mentioned without her paramour the nightingale, which gives reason to suppose that this bird, in those countries where it was first celebrated, had really some natural fondness for the rose; or perhaps for some insect which took shelter in it. In Sir W. Jones' translation of the Persian fable, of "The Gardener and Nightingale" we meet with the following distich.
_"I know not what the rose says under his lips, that he brings back the helpless Nightingales with their mournful notes.
One day the Gardener, according to his established custom, went to view the roses; he saw a plaintive nightingale rubbing his head on the leaves of the roses and tearing asunder, with his sharp bill, that volume adorned with gold."_