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Nightingale Woman book

Stevens offers to read "Nightingale Woman"

"Nightingale Woman" was a poem by Tarbolde, written in 1996 on the Canopus Planet. It was said in the 23rd century to be "one of the most passionate love sonnets of the past couple of centuries."

An excerpt of the sonnet, found on page 387, read:

"My love has wings,
slender, feathered things
with grace in upswept curve
and tapered tip…"

Human esper Gary Mitchell quoted this poem after absorbing it with his increased mental capacity from being in contact with the galactic barrier. (TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before")

In 2381, Lt. Cmdr. Stevens read "Nightingale Woman" to Cmdr. Jack Ransom while Ransom was recovering from exposure to strange energies. (LD: "Strange Energies")

The words to the poem were written by Gene Roddenberry back when he was an aviator, as a love poem from a pilot to his airplane. (Star Trek Encyclopedia (2nd ed., p. 324)) The script of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" refers to the poem with a very slight difference, as "The Nightingale Woman".
The first line of the poem, "My love has wings" was inscribed underneath a picture of Rita Hayworth on a 1947 calendar seen in DS9: "Little Green Men".

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