62 UNDER THE TREES. 



revelation ; I forget that for which I have waited ; 

 I only know that the woods have found their voice, 

 and that I have fallen upon the sacred hour when 

 the song is a prayer. Who shall describe that wild, 

 strange music of the hermit-thrush ? Who will 

 ever hear it in the depths of the forest without a 

 sudden thrill of joy and a sudden sense of pathos ? 

 It is a note apart from the symphony to which the 

 summer has moved across the fields and homes of 

 men ; it has no kinship with those flooding, liquid 

 melodies which poured from feathered throats 

 through the long golden days ; there is a strain in 

 it that was never caught under blue skies and in 

 the safe nesting of the familiar fields ; it is the 

 voice of solitude suddenly breaking into sound ; it 

 is the speech of that other world so near our doors, 

 and yet removed from us by uncounted centuries 

 and unexplored experiences. 



The spell of silence has been broken, and I ven 

 ture softly toward the hidden fountain from which 

 this unworldly song has flowed ; but I am too slow 

 and too late, and it remains to me a disembodied 

 voice singing the &quot;old, familiar things &quot; of a past 

 which becomes more and more distinct as I linger 

 in the shadows of this ancient place. As I walk 

 slowly on, there grows upon me the sense of a life 

 which for the most part makes no sound, and is all 

 the deeper and richer because it is inarticulate. 

 The very thought of speech or companionship jars 

 upon me ; silence alone is possible for such hours 



