THE NIGHTINGALE IN IRELAND [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—May I answer a letter from " W. W." which appeared in a recent issue of the Spectator with reference to a verse or two quoted from my poem " The Exile " in a very kind review of my book Twilight Songs. If " W. W." had read the whole poem, as I hope he will, he would have seen that the line : " All night the nightingale is never still,"
applied to Sussex, not to Ireland. There have never been nightingales in Ireland any more than snakes. William Allingham suggested fancifully that the troubled conditions of life in Ireland kept the nightingales out, but that need not be considered since the bird is so capricious in his choice of where he will and will not sing. I don't think I suggested that the hen nightingale ever sang. If the nightingale sought deep flooding peace he would find it amid these Kildare pas- tures and woods from which I write. They are not disturbed by political passions and crimes.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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