CHAPTER V 



THE SINGING PINES 



The pines were asleep in the noonday heat 



That shimmered down the lea, 

 But they waked with the roar of a wave-swept shore 



When the wind came in from the sea. 



They sang of ships, and the bosun piped. 



The hoarse watch roared a tune, 

 The taut sheets whined in the twanging wind, 



You heard the breakers croon. 



For their brothers, masts on a thousand keels, 



Had sent a greeting free. 

 And the answering song swelled clear and strong 



When the wind came in from the sea. 



Last night I heard the pines sing- again. A 

 winter midnight was on the woods, while a north- 

 easter smote the coast, a dozen miles away, with 

 the million sledges of the surf. So mighty was 

 the story of this smiting, that for long I thought 

 the pines sang of nothing else. In places and at 

 times they told it with astonishing fidelity. A 

 forty-mile gale muttered and grumbled to itself 



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