The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-07-27


TIME meanest man lives in Vienna.
He has been discovered as plaintiff
L in a suit to enjoin a neighbor from
maintaining a nuisance. The nuisance
complained of is a nightingale.
The nightingale, sung by the poets,
honored by composers of music, has
standing in the literature of the world.
Heretofore 1t has never been considered
maker of needless noises.
The sweet bird that shun,st the noise
of folly; most musical, most melancholy,
has been the theme of writers, inspired
by its liquid notes, but never before the
subject of a petition for an injunction
filed in a municipal court.
The nightingale is credited by one of
the poets with creating a drowsy numb
ness of the senses. las though of hem
lock had drunk" 1t has never before
been branded a midnight murderer of
sleep.
The nightingale'si voice has: i.r a.
Charmed magic easements, opening on
the foam
OF perilous seas in faery lands forlorn."
Never before has it moved a crusty
ledger to take legal action against the
next door neighbor.
Nightingale's tongues have been served
upon silver and gold in the palaces of
emperors whose cruelty killed number
less songsters but delivered no blow so
cruel as that administered by the man in
Vienna who calls his neighbours nightin-
gale pest, and classes It with the
n. ~ lit, dne~
A little rusty brown bird tinged with
olive and touched with gray and white,
frequenting bushes rather than towering
trees, the nightingale is not bird OF
striking appearance, but its habit of
singing during the nesting and incubat-
ing season has contributed to the world
music unequaled by that of the greatest
composers. 1t has never been regarded
as an intruder in a world full of raucous
dissonance. 1t is when the female night
ingale is sitting that the male pours
forth flood of song, giving vocal ex-
preston to his blissful anticipation of
the Matching of four or five little olive
green eggs warmed by the breast of his
silent partner in tiny nest of leaves
and grass tucked away in secluded
place by lake or stream. In his days
of idleness the prospective father sings
cradlesongs. heralding the birth of his
sons and daughters in advance. The dis
charge of his function as provder and
protector keeps him busy after the egg
shells are broken Bird fanciers say that
nightingale trapped after the mating
season dies of broken heart, attesting
with his latest note his loyalty, his long
ling and his loneliness.
Because of the significance of the night
frgale's song. as well as because of its
marvellous music, writer's Of verse and
romance have loved 1t. 1t is not sur
prising 10 find that the man in Vienna
who went to court to silence a nightin-
gale was a rheumatic and rantankerous
old bachelor
"~.e man who hath no music in him.
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet
| sounds,
Is fit for treasons, strategems and spoiis
The motions of his spirits dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus;
Let no such man be trusted.
Thus spoke Lorenzo to Jessica. Lorenzo
would have been the last man in the
world to register kick against night
[ingale the bird that sings it's best wher
the moonlight is brightest.
Nightingales sung in Belmont wher
there occurred between Lorenzo and Jes'
sica this conversation:
THE moon shines bright; in such a night
as this, r
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the
trees,
And they did make no noise, in such 9
| night
Trolius methinks mounted the Troyar
walls,
And sighed his soul toward the Graeciar
tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.
| In such a night
Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew
| And saw the lions shadow ere himself
| And ran dismayd away.
In such a night
stood Dido with willow In her hand
| IJpon the wild sea banks and watt he
love-
To come again to Carthage.
In such a night
Medea gathered the enchanted heroes
That did renew old Aeson."
The plaintiff in Vienna is evidently ,n'
whom no man should trust He shsul'