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32
THE THRUSH AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

Its sound reached to the roof of the dingle.
His robe, from his slender waist, was
Of a thousand delicately branching flowers;
His cassock you might imagine to be
Of the wings of the ardent flapping wind.
The altar there was covered
With nothing but gold:
Morvyth had sent him,
(Metrical singer, foster-son of May!)
I heard him in brilliant language
Prophesy without ceasing,
And read to the parish
The gospel without stammering!
He raised for us on the hills there
The sacred wafer made of a fair leaf:
And the beautiful nightingale, slender and tall,
From the corner of the glen near him,
Priest of the dingle! sang to a thousand;
And the bells of the mass continually did ring,
And raised the host
To the sky, above the thicket,
And sang stanzas to our Lord and Creator,
With sylvan ecstasy and love!
I am enraptured with the song
Which was matured in the birchen grove of the woods.