58 



OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



me — and I hope it did — it was only the beat of 

 the big drops of rain on the twigs above, clarified 

 and made resonant by its passage through the 

 vibrant wood to my ear. At any rate, it was a 

 most delightful musical entertainment of which I 

 fancy myself the discoverer, and I hope it was the 

 dryad. He who reads may believe as he will. 



Beyond the pines I found the wind in the 

 woods. Among the bare limbs of the deciduous 

 growth the storm wailed and clattered its way 

 on a'bout my head as I felt out the path with my 

 feet for a half mile to a pine-crowned hilltop. 

 Again I was in sanctuary. The hilltop car- 

 ried us up — the pines and me — into the full 

 sweep of the gale, yet under their spreading, 

 beneficent arms I felt no breath of wind. Over- 

 head I noted its own wild voice as, very near 

 and right with it in chorus, the pines sang, sway- 

 ing in time to their music as I have seen a rapt 

 singer do. Strangely enough, in their tones up 

 here I could hear no cry of the sea. They sang 

 instead the tumult of the sky, the vast lonliness 

 of distant spaces, something of the deep-toned 

 threnody of the ancient universe, mourning for 

 worlds now dark. 



Something of this the gale drew from the pines 



