PERHAPS if global warming really happens, nightingales will be heard north of the Border in coming decades.

Meantime we may enjoy this charming Scots poem on the subject by the New Zealand-born Sydney Goodsir Smith (1915-1975). He was also the author of a play about William Wallace.

PHILOMEL

The hushed world o midnicht

Stude strucken still,

Still were aa the simmer sternes,

The mune slept on the hill.

The void whispered in my hert

The tuim airts were filled

As throu the nichtit wuid I heard

The dervish rossignel.

The firmament was opened wide

And aa the waters melled,

The reid tod stude by the dyke -

O Youth! O Luve! O Philomel!

Philomel and rossignel (Fr)=nightingale; reid tod=red fox