g;
Not he; but something which possess'd
The darkness of the world, _delight_,
_Life_, _anguish_, _death_, _immortal love_,
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd,
Apart from place, withholding time."

Again, in the _In Memoriam_:

"Wild bird! whose warble, liquid, sweet,
Rings Eden through the budded quicks,
Oh, tell me where the senses mix,
Oh, tell me where the passions meet,

"Whence radiate? _Fierce extremes_ employ
Thy spirit in the dusking leaf,
And _in the midmost heart of grief
Thy passion clasps a secret joy_."

With which compare these lines in _The Gardener's Daughter_:

"Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells,--
Of that which came between, more sweet than each,
In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves
That tremble round a nightingale--_in sighs
Which perfect Joy, perplexed for utterance,
Stole from her sister Sorrow_."

But the most singular proof that, I think, I have met with, concerning
the diversity of opinion touching the song of the nightingale, is to be
found in the following example. When Shelley (_Prometheus Unbound_) is
describing the luxurious pleasures of the Grove of Daphne, he mentions
(in some of the finest lines he has ever written) "the _voluptuous_
nightingales, sick with sweet love," to be among the great attractions
of the place: while Dean Milman (_Martyrs of Antioch_), in describing
the very same "dim, licentious Daphne," is particular in mention that
everything there

"Ministers
_Voluptuous_ to man's transgressions"

(even including the "winds, and flowers, and waters"); everything, in
short,

"_Save thou_, sweet _nightingale!_"

The question is indeed a case of "fierce extremes," as we may see by the
following table of epithets, which are taken from the British poets
only:

_Amorous._ Milton.
_Artless._ Drummond of Hawthornden.
_Attick_ ("Attica aedon"). Gray.
_Beautiful._ Mackay.
_Charmer._ Michael Drayton, Philip Ayres.
_Charming._ Sir Roger L'Estrange.
_Cheerful._ Philip Ayres.
_Complaining._ Shakspeare.
_Conqueror._ Ford
_Dainty._ Carshaw, Giles Fletcher.
_Darkling._ Milton.
_Dear._ Ben Jonson, Drummond of Hawthornden.
_Deep._ Mrs. Hemans.
_Delicious._ Crashaw, Coleridge.
_Doleful._ Shakspeare.
_Dusk._ Barry Cornwall.
_Enchanting._ Mrs. T. Welsh.