NOCTES AMBROSIANE. XXV. (JUNE 1830.) ΧΡΗ ΔΕΝ ΣΥΜΠΟΣΙΩ ΚΥΛΙΚΩΝ ΠΕΡΙΝΙΣΣΟΜΕΝΑΩΝ [This is a distich by wise old Phocylides, An ancient who wrote crabbed Greek in no silly days; PHOC. ap. Ath. Meaning, "TIS RIGHT FOR GOOD WINE-BIBBING PEOPLE, NOT TO LET THE JUG PACE ROUND THE BOARD LIKE A CRIPPLE ; An excellent rule of the hearty old cock 'tis— C. N. ap. Ambr. Scene, The Arbour, Buchanan Lodge. Time,-Eight o'clock. Present,-NORTH, ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER, SHEPHERD, and TICKLER. Table with light wines, oranges, biscuits, almonds, and raisins. Shepherd. Rain but no star-proof, this bonny bee-hummin, bird-nest-concealin Bower, that seems, but for the trelliswark peepin out here and there where the later flowerin-shrubs are scarcely yet out o' the bud,-rather a production o' Nature's sel, than o' the gardener's genius. O, sir, but in its bricht and balmy beauty 'tis even nae less than a perfeck Poem! North. Look, James, how she cowers within her couchonly the point of her bill, the tip of her tail, visible—so pas VOL. III. A 2 A MAVIS'S NEST.-A SHILFA'S NEST. sionately cleaveth the loving creature to the nestlings beneath her mottled breast, each morning beautifying from down to plumage, till next Sabbath-sun shall stir them out of their cradle, and scatter them, in their first weak wavering flight, up and down the dewy dawn of their native Paradise. Shepherd. A bit mavis !' Hushed as a dream-and like a dream to be startled aff intil ether, if you but touch the leafcroon that o'er-canopies her head. What an ee! Shy, yet confidin- as she sits there ready to flee awa wi' a rustle in a moment, yet linked within that rim by the chains o' love, motionless as if she were dead! North. See--she stirs !. Shepherd. Dinna be disturbed. I could glower at her for hours, musin on the mystery o' instinct, and at times forgettin that my een were fixed but on a silly bird,-for sae united are a' the affections o' sentient Natur that you hae only to keek' intil a bush o' broom, or a sweet-briar, or doun to the green braird aneath your feet, to behold in the lintie, or the lark or in that mavis-God bless her!—an emblem o' the young Christian mother fauldin up in her nursin bosom the beauty and the blessedness o' her ain First-born! North. I am now threescore-and-ten, James, and I have suffered and enjoyed much; but I know not, if, during all the confusion of those many-coloured years, diviner delight ever possessed my heart and my imagination, than of old entranced me in solitude, when among the braes, and the moors, and the woods, I followed the verdant footsteps of the Spring, uncompanioned but by my own shadow, and gave names to every nook in nature, from the singing-birds of Scotland discovered, but disturbed not, in their most secret nests. Tickler. Namby-pamby! 8 Shepherd. Nae sic thing. A shilfa's nest within the angle made by the slicht, silvery, satiny stem o' a bit birk-tree, and ane o' its young branches glitterin and glimmerin at ance wi’ shade and sunshine and a dowery o' pearls, is a sicht that, when seen for the first time in this life, gars a boy's being loup out o' his verra bosom richt up intil the boundless blue o' heaven! Tickler. Poo! Shepherd. Whisht-O whisht. For 'tis felt to be something 3 Shilfa chaffinch. 1 Mavis-thrush. 2 Keek-peep. |