[Footnote 4: "_Most musical, most melancholy_." This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere description: it is spoken in the character of the melancholy Man, and has therefore a _dramatic_ propriety. The Author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than which none could be more painful to him, except perhaps that of having ridiculed his Bible.] When he had better far have stretch'd his limbs Beside a 'brook in mossy forest-dell By sun or moonlight, to the influxes Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song And of his fame forgetful! so his fame Should share in nature's immortality, A venerable thing! and so his song Should make all nature lovelier, and itself Be lov'd, like nature!--But 'twill not be so; And youths and maidens most poetical Who lose the deep'ning twilights of the spring In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains. My Friend, and my Friend's Sister! we have learnt A different lore: we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices always full of love And joyance! Tis the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful, that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth Hi? love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music! And I know a grove Of large extent, hard by a castle huge Which the great lord inhabits not: and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many Nightingales: and far and near In wood and thicket over the wide grove They answer and provoke each other's songs-- With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug And one low piping sound more sweet than all-- Stirring the air with such an harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day!