But those throbbing coos must stay our foot ere we quite leave the wood. The Dove--its voice is, of course, the embodiment of love; troubled, but not passionate; earnest, but not of earth merely. It has a melancholy vehemence, a sobbing urging of its cause, that is rather the voice of one seeking the good of another than its own delight. There is a tremulousness, a trembling fulness that might be that of one bidding farewell in death to some very dear friend whom he fain would win to the right and happy path, but for whom he sadly stands in doubt. There is such abundance from which to speak, such love and such mournfulness in saying it, that you smile with the tears near your eyes, on suddenly recollecting whither fancy was leading you, and that it is, after all, but the old old story being beautifully and melodiously told. For you caught a sight of the ash-blue wing, the mild eye, and swelling crop, and of the mate on a branch close by; and so your fancy was overturned.
But there is one song which we shall not hear yet, as we return home from the wood; of which, nevertheless, some words must be said. Yet what words have even the greatest word-masters yet found for the NIGHTINGALE’S unearthly melody! What other song has even a likeness of the instantaneous and riveting fascination that is produced by one note of this? It is music which speaks, not to what we call the heart, merely, or the intellect, merely, but straight at once to that mysterious divine thing within us, which we call the spirit.
And so it represents that recognition of, and yearning for, an ideal perfection and beauty, which many own, but few can express. And thus we start to hear it represented and embodied in sound without language, and, without knowing how, acknowledge a dumb music in ourselves which is closely akin to this superhuman and unearthly song. And we cannot, if we try, exactly define its character; some call it joyous; more sorrowful. But perhaps there is a hint in it of something within us higher and deeper than either of these; else how can it thus startle and electrify our being? At least it tells us of melody that we cannot yet grasp or fully understand, of beauty and harmony and perfection that is not yet our own. And I liken it to the raptured speakings of the prophet, or to an echo of the angelic messages seldom brought to earth.