AT NATURAL BRIDGE 221 



times employed, but " slowly " is perhaps 

 better, though it is true that the song is cool 

 and, so to speak, very unpassionate. Dynam- 

 ically I marked it *<3^>^, while the vari- 

 ations in pitch may be indicated roughly 



thus : -. Two of the lower notes, 



the fifth and sixth, were shorter than the 

 others, — half as long, if my ear and memory 

 are to be trusted. Sometimes a bird would 

 break out into a bit of flourish at the end, 

 but to my thinking such improvised caden- 

 zas, as they had every appearance of being, 

 only detracted from the simplicity of the 

 strain without adding anything appreciable 

 to its beauty or its effectiveness. 



This song, which the reader will perhaps 

 blame me for trying thus to analyze (I shall 

 not blame him'), very soon grew to be almost 

 a part of the glen ; so that I never recall the 

 brook and the cliffs without seeming to hear 

 it rising clear and sweet above the brawling 

 of the current ; and when I hear it, I can 

 see the birds flitting up or down the creek, 

 just in advance of me, with sharp chips of 

 alarm or displeasure ; now balancing un- 

 easily on a boulder in mid-stream (a posterior 

 bodily fluctuation, half graceful, half comical, 



