At first the lark, when she means to rejoice, to cheer herself and those
that hear her, she then quits the earth, and sings as she ascends higher
into the air; and having ended her heavenly employment, grows
then mute and sad, to think she must descend to the dull earth, which
she would not touch but for necessity,
How do the blackbird and throssel, with their melodious voices, bid
welcome to the cheerful spring, and in their fixed mouths warble forth
such ditties as no art or instrument can reach to!
Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in their particular seasons, as,
namely, the laverock, the titlark, the little linnet, and the honest
robin, that loves mankind, both alive and dead.
But the nightingale—another of my airy creatures—breathes such sweet,
loud music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make
mankind to think miracles are not ceased. He that at midnight, when the
very laborer sleeps securely, should hear—as I have very often—the clear
airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling
and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and say,
“Lord, what music hast thou provided for the saints in heaven, when thou
afforded bad men such music on earth?”