SOUNDS FROM TREES. 325 



into silence as they recede from the shore. Other trees 

 produce very different sounds. The colors of their leaves, 

 and the glittering lights from their more or less refractive 

 surfaces, do not differ more than the modifications of 

 sound drawn from them by the passing winds. Every 

 tree is a delicate musical instrument, that reminds us of 

 the character of the tree and the season of the year, from 

 the mellow soothing tones of willow leaves in summer to 

 the sharp rustling of the dry oak-leaf that tells of the 

 arrival of winter. 



The sounds from trees are a very important part of the 

 music of nature; but their agreeableness comes rather 

 from certain emotions they awaken than from the melody 

 of their tones. Nature has accommodated her gifts to our 

 wants and sensibilities, so that her beneficence is never 

 so apparent as in the pleasures we derive from the most 

 common objects. If we are afflicted with grief or wearied 

 with care, we flee to the groves to be soothed by the quiet 

 of their solitudes, and by the sounds from their boughs 

 which are tuned to every healthful mood of the mind. 

 Among the thousand strings that are swept by the winds, 

 there is always a chord in unison with our feelings ; and 

 while each strain comes to the ear with its accordant 

 vibration, the mind is healed of its disquietude by sounds 

 that seem like direct messages of peace from the guar- 

 dian deities of the wood. 



We find in the works of Ossian frequent allusions to 

 the sounds from trees, to heighten the effect of his descrip- 

 tions. As the " Spirit of the Mountain," he addresses the 

 wind that bends the oaks, and gives out that deep melan- 

 choly sound that precedes a storm, " when Temora's woods 

 shake with the blast of the inconstant winds." He speaks 

 of the "sons of song" as having gone to rest, while his 

 own voice remains, like the feeble sounds of the forest, 

 when the winds are laid. When the aged oak of Morven 



