The fable of the nightingale's origin would, of course, in classical times, give the character of melancholy to its song; and it is rather remarkable that AEschylus makes Cassandra speak of the _happy_ chirp of the nightingale, and the Chorus to remark upon this as a further proof of her insanity. (Shakspeare makes Edgar say, "The _foul fiend_ haunted poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale."--_King Lear_, Act III. Sc. 6.) Tennyson seems to be almost the only poet who has thoroughly recognised the great variety of epithets that may be applied to the nightingale's song, through the very opposite feelings which it {398} seems to possess the power to awaken. In his _Recollections of the Arabian Nights_, he says,-- "The living airs of middle night Died round the Bulbul as he sung; Not he; but something which possess'd The darkness of the world, _delight_, _Life_, _anguish_, _death_, _immortal love_, Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd, Apart from place, withholding time." Again, in the _In Memoriam_: "Wild bird! whose warble, liquid, sweet, Rings Eden through the budded quicks, Oh, tell me where the senses mix, Oh, tell me where the passions meet, "Whence radiate? _Fierce extremes_ employ Thy spirit in the dusking leaf, And _in the midmost heart of grief Thy passion clasps a secret joy_." With which compare these lines in _The Gardener's Daughter_: "Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells,-- Of that which came between, more sweet than each, In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves That tremble round a nightingale--_in sighs Which perfect Joy, perplexed for utterance, Stole from her sister Sorrow_." But the most singular proof that, I think, I have met with, concerning the diversity of opinion touching the song of the nightingale, is to be found in the following example. When Shelley (_Prometheus Unbound_) is describing the luxurious pleasures of the Grove of Daphne, he mentions (in some of the finest lines he has ever written) "the _voluptuous_ nightingales, sick with sweet love," to be among the great attractions of the place: while Dean Milman (_Martyrs of Antioch_), in describing the very same "dim, licentious Daphne," is particular in mention that everything there "Ministers _Voluptuous_ to man's transgressions" (even including the "winds, and flowers, and waters"); everything, in short, "_Save thou_, sweet _nightingale!_" The question is indeed a case of "fierce extremes," as we may see by the following table of epithets, which are taken from the British poets only: