$o UNDER THE TREES, 



sound ; the steep ravine, receding in darker and 

 darker distance, until it seems like one of the fabled 

 passages to the under world : the wide, shadowy 

 pool, into which no sunlight falls, and in which night 

 itself seems to sleep under the very eyes of day all 

 these things speak a language which even the dullest 

 must understand. As I sit musing, conscious of 

 the darkest shadows and deepest mysteries close at 

 hand, and yet undisturbed by them, I recall that 

 one of the noblest poems on Death ever written 

 was inspired in this place ; and I note without sur 

 prise, as its solemn lines come back to me, that 

 there is no horror in it, no ignoble fear, but awe 

 and reverence and the sublimity of a great and 

 hopeful thought. The organ music of those slow- 

 moving verses seems like the very voice of a place 

 out of which all dread has gone from the thought 

 of death, and where the brief span of life seems to 

 arch the abyss of death with immortality. 



