212 MY DEVON YEAR 



from the river and steaming valley back to the sky- 

 again. The day seemed one of vast elemental throb 

 and movement. Everything lived ; everything was 

 great ; everything was justified. On such a day a 

 creator resting from his labours might have seen his 

 work that it was good. The scent of the pine and the 

 murmur of dry leaves in the wind came as incense 

 and music proper to the earth's festival ; and the 

 cloth of gold, far flung from hill and valley, was 

 seemly raiment for that rite of universal thanksgiving. 

 The world melted away from around me, from beneath 

 me ; and dreaming there, my restless soul listened, 

 as it seemed, to one note that echoed upon a harp 

 wrought of precious things a harp in the hand of 

 some singer unseen. 



It may have been the pigeon in the pine, the bay of 

 a distant hound, or the tolling of a bell ; some such 

 melodious mundane utterance it surely was ; yet, 

 transmuted, it fell upon my ear as an expression above 

 the common music of earth, as a song of deeper 

 meaning than ever reached my heart before. It was 

 the voice of the joy of Nature a lyric rapture 

 heard for an instant, then heard no more. 



The earth and the face of the river bade me 

 farewell ; the mazes of the sky darkened, all bound- 

 aries vanished, and this golden harmony, by grada- 

 tions slow-sinking and solemn, surrendered itself to 

 night. 



