I thanked her, and was right well apaied, Yea, quoth she, and be not thou dismaied, Tho' thou have heard the cuckoo erst than me; For, if I live, it shall amended be, The next May, if I be not affraied." "If I be not affraied." Would she not put the "if" more timidly now, in making the same promise to any of you, or in asking for the judgment between her and her enemy, which was to be past, do you remember, on this very day of the year, so many years ago, and within eight miles of this very spot? "And this shall be without any Nay On the morrow after St. Valentine's day, Under a maple that is faire and green Before the chamber window of the Queen At Woodstoke, upon the greene lawn. She thanked them, and then her leave took And into an hawthorn by that broke. And there she sate, and sang upon that tree '_Terme of life love hath withheld me_' So loud, that I with that song awoke." 57. "Terme of life love hath withheld me!" Alas, how have we men reversed this song of the nightingale! so that our words must be "Terme of life, hatred hath withheld me." This, then, was the old English science of the song of birds; and perhaps you are indignant with me for bringing any word of it back to you? You have, I doubt not, your new science of song, as of nest-building: and I am happy to think you could all explain to me, or at least you will be able to do so before you pass your natural science examination, how, by the accurate connection of a larynx with a bill, and by the action of heat, originally derived from the sun, upon the muscular fibre, an undulatory motion is produced in the larynx, and an opening and shutting one in the bill, which is accompanied, necessarily, by a piping sound. 58. I will not dispute your statement; still less do I wish to answer for the absolute truth of Chaucer's. You will find that the complete truth embraces great part of both; and that you may study, at your choice, in any singing bird, the action of universal heat on a marvellous mechanism, or of individual life, on a frame capable of exquisite passion. But the point I wish you to consider is the relation to this lower creature's power, of your own human agencies in the production of sound, where you can best unite in its harmony.