So bashful when I spied her! 1
So pretty－so ashamed!
So hidden in her leaflets
Lest anybody find－
So breathless till I passed here－5
So helpless when I turned
And bore her struggling, blushing,
Her simple haunts beyond!
For whom I robbed the Dingle－9
For whom I betrayed the Dell－
Many, will doubtless ask me,
But I shall never tell!
So pretty－so ashamed!
So hidden in her leaflets
Lest anybody find－
So breathless till I passed here－5
So helpless when I turned
And bore her struggling, blushing,
Her simple haunts beyond!
For whom I robbed the Dingle－9
For whom I betrayed the Dell－
Many, will doubtless ask me,
But I shall never tell!
(F.70/J.91)
[1] her:: a bell-bird named for its dingle sound.
[1–4] bashful, leaflets:: a bird hidden in a bush.
[5] breathless:: the bird stopped its dingle sound.
[8] haunts:: the bird's nest.
[9] Dingle:: sound of the bell-bird; OED recorded dingle-bird in 1870.
[10] Dell:: a hint on dell-bird, also called bell-bird.
[12] never tell:: she takes away the bird, and will tell no one for whom.
"Mr. Caley thus observes on this bird:－"Dell-bird or Bell-bird. So called by the colonists. It is an inhabitant of bushes, where its disagreeable noise (disagreeable at least to me) may be continually heard;" ─ Transactions of the Linnean Society of London (1827)
Because its voice is, for about six weeks only, in December and January, like the noise of a cracked bell. The carunculated chatterer is also called the bell-bird, from its notes being composed of two syllables－in an, uttered in a drawling tone, which (Mr Waterton says) may be heard three miles distant. ─ Knowledge for the People (1832)
