In the meanwhile I sat listening, not to my enemy the cuckoo, but to a whole concert of nightingales, scarcely interrupted by any meaner bird, answering and vying with each other in those short delicious strains which are to the ear as roses to the eye: those snatches of lovely sound which come across us as airs from heaven. Pleasant thoughts, delightful associations, awoke as I listened; and almost unconsciously I repeated to myself the beautiful story of the Lutist and the Nightingale, from Ford's 'Lover's Melancholy.' Here it is.
Is there in English poetry anything finer?
'Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales Which poets of an elder time have feign'd To glorify their Tempe, bred in me Desire of visiting Paradise.
To Thessaly I came, and living private, Without acquaintance of more sweet companions Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts, I day by day frequented silent groves And solitary walks. One morning early This accident encounter'd me: I heard The sweetest and most ravishing contention That art and nature ever were at strife in.
A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather Indeed entranced my soul; as I stole nearer, Invited by the melody, I saw This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute With strains of strange variety and harmony Proclaiming, as it seem'd, so bold a challenge To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds, That as they flock'd about him, all stood silent, Wondering at what they heard. I wonder'd too.
A nightingale, Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes The challenge; and for every several strain The well-shaped youth could touch, she sang him down.
He could not run divisions with more art Upon his quaking instrument than she, The nightingale, did with her various notes Reply to.
Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last Into a pretty anger, that a bird, Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes Should vie with him for mastery, whose study Had busied many hours to perfect practice.
To end the controversy, in a rapture Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly, So many voluntaries, and so quick, That there was curiosity and cunning, Concord in discord, lines of differing method Meeting in one full centre of delight.
The bird (ordain'd to be Music's first martyr) strove to imitate These several sounds; which when her warbling throat Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on his lute, And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness To see the conqueror upon her hearse To weep a funeral elegy of tears.
He look'd upon the trophies of his art, Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes; then sigh'd, and cry'd "Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge This cruelty upon the author of it.
Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood, Shall never more betray a harmless peace To an untimely end:" and in that sorrow, As he was pashing it against a tree, I suddenly stept in.'
When I had finished the recitation of this exquisite passage, the sky, which had been all the afternoon dull and heavy, began to look more and more threatening; darker clouds, like wreaths of black smoke, flew across the dead leaden tint; a cooler, damper air blew over the meadows, and a few large heavy drops splashed in the water.
'We shall have a storm. Lizzy! May! where are ye? Quick, quick, my Lizzy! run, run! faster, faster!'
And off we ran; Lizzy not at all displeased at the thoughts of a wetting, to which indeed she is almost as familiar as a duck; May, on the other hand, peering up at the weather, and shaking her pretty ears with manifest dismay. Of all animals, next to a cat, a greyhound dreads rain. She might have escaped it; her light feet would have borne her home long before the shower; but May is too faithful for that, too true a comrade, understands too well the laws of good-fellowship; so she waited for us. She did, to be sure, gallop on before, and then stop and look back, and beckon, as it were, with some scorn in her black eyes at the slowness of our progress. We in the meanwhile got on as fast as we could, encouraging and reproaching each other. 'Faster, my Lizzy! Oh, what a bad runner!'--'Faster, faster! Oh, what a bad runner!' echoed my saucebox. 'You are so fat, Lizzy, you make no way!'--'Ah! who else is fat?' retorted the darling. Certainly her mother is right; I do spoil that child.
By this time we were thoroughly soaked, all three. It was a pelting shower, that drove through our thin summer clothing and poor May's short glossy coat in a moment. And then, when we were wet to the skin, the sun came out, actually the sun, as if to laugh at our plight; and then, more provoking still, when the sun was shining, and the shower over, came a maid and a boy to look after us, loaded with cloaks and umbrellas enough to fence us against a whole day's rain. Never mind! on we go, faster and faster; Lizzy obliged to be most ignobly carried, having had the misfortune to lose a shoe in the mud, which we left the boy to look after.
Here we are at home--dripping; but glowing and laughing, and bearing our calamity most manfully. May, a dog of excellent sense, went instantly to bed in the stable, and is at this moment over head and ears in straw; Lizzy is gone to bed too, coaxed into that wise measure by a promise of tea and toast, and of not going home till to-morrow, and the story of Little Red Riding Hood; and I am enjoying the luxury of dry clothing by a good fire. Really getting wet through now and then is no bad thing, finery apart; for one should not like spoiling a new pelisse, or a handsome plume; but when there is nothing in question but a white gown and a straw bonnet, as was the case to-day, it is rather pleasant than not. The little chill refreshes, and our enjoyment of the subsequent warmth and dryness is positive and absolute. Besides, the stimulus and exertion do good to the mind as well as body. How melancholy I was all the morning! how cheerful I am now! Nothing like a shower-bath--a real shower-bath, such as Lizzy and May and I have undergone, to cure low spirits. Try it, my dear readers, if ever ye be nervous--I will answer for its success.
