the branches ; they break, as against invisible Where 

 barriers, and fall in a myriad pattering rush, the Forest 

 The hoarse mutterings and sudden crashing Murmurs, 

 roar of the thunder possess the whole forest. 

 There are no more privacies, the secrecies are 

 violated. From that moment the woods are 

 renewed, and with the renewal the secret spirit 

 that dwells within them withdraws, is not to 

 be surprised, is inaudible, indefinitely recedes, 

 is become remote, obscure, ineffable, incom- 

 municable. And so, through veils of silence, 

 and hot noons and husht warm midnights, the 

 long weeks of July and August go by. 



In the woods of September surely the forest- 

 soul may be surprised, will be the thought of 

 many. In that month the sweet incessant 

 business of bird and beast lessens or is at an 

 end. The woodpecker may still tap at the 

 boles of gnarled oaks and chestnuts ; the 

 squirrel is more than ever mischievously gay ; 

 on frosty mornings, when the gossamer webs 

 are woven across every bramble, and from 

 frond to frond of the bronze-stained bracken, 

 the redbreast tries and retries the poignant 

 new song he has somehow learned since first 

 he flaunted his bright canticles of March and 

 April from the meadow-hedge or the sunned 

 greenness of the beech-covert. But there is a 

 general silence, a present suspense, while the 

 5 



