92 Cheyne Walk Chelsea.
Friday morning.
My dear Mr Chambers
A thousand thanks for your most kind and charming note. But I fear I can’t get away. I am still
working at S.A. and have to work on Sundays to get done certain matters before leaving town. I am , I fear,
always giving you the idea of being a man complaining of being worked to death, but it is very wrong if I do,
because the truth is rather that I put so many irons in the fire I cannot take care of them, but they are my own
putting and never
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come to much. Only I am at this time so daily occupied that your kindness is of no good to me, since I can’t
leave tomorrow.
I should indeed like to have the Nightingale. Did you ever read {?with} a sonnet I wrote after going
out on two successive nights in Warwickshire in vain to listen to him? I write it on other side in case you
have not and wo like to read it.
With the Readiest Remembrances to the D. and to Mrs Chambers
My Dear Mr Chambers
{Ever} yours very truly
William B. Scott
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THE NIGHTINGALE UNHEARD.
Is that the much-desired, the wondrous wail
Of the brown bird by poets loved so long ?
Nay, it is but the thrush's rich clear song
Through the red sunset word rung; but down the vale,
Beneath the starlight, never do we fail
To hear the love-lorn singer: still and dark
Above our heads the black boughs arch; and, hark !
A wild short note,-another,- then a trail
Of loud clear song is drawn athwart the glow,
Filling the formless night with cheerfulness.
But sure we know that melody full wellThe dear old blackbird ! Lets no further go;
There's no brown bird:- Ye poets all, confess
That Fancy only is your Philomel.