Enough to last me for a lifetime--with proper economy, of course--it
will not do to exhaust, by too frequent experiment, the strange capacity
of a melodic bar for preserving the essence of by-gone things, and days
that are no more.
Oh, Nightingale! whether thou singest thyself or, better still, if thy
voice by not in thy throat, but in thy fiery heart and subtle brain, and
thou makest songs for the singing of many others, blessed be thy name!
The very sound of it is sweet in every clime and tongue: Nightingale,
Rossignol, Usignuolo, Bulbul! Even Nachtigall does not sound amiss in
the mouth of a fair English girl who has had a Hanoverian for a
governess! and, indeed, it is in the Nachtigall's country that the best
music is made!
[Illustration: "OH, NIGHTINGALE!"]
And oh, Nightingale! never, never grudge thy song to those who love
it--nor waste it upon those who do not....
Thus serenaded, I would close my eyes, and lapped in darkness and
warmth and heavenly sound, be lulled asleep--perchance to dream!
For my early childhood was often haunted by a dream, which at first I
took for a reality--a transcendant dream of some interest and importance
to mankind, as the patient reader will admit in time.
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