152 " Through the Wheat" 



near oats or wheat or barley, lay your ear close to the 

 ground and listen when the wind comes up once more, 

 and it will seem to you as though thousands of soft 

 human sobbings, not all of sorrow, but not all of joy 

 either, had merged, mingled together, and taken sweet- 

 ness and soul and penetrating individuality from their 

 union. You may hear wondrously weird tones when 

 "wind, the grand old harper, strikes his thunder- 

 harp of pines ; " but it is generally too high-set, the 

 resistance is too great, the strings are too far apart for 

 the notes or sobbings softly to intermingle ; you hear 

 in a greater degree and in a degree too definite for the 

 fullest effect, each individual voice, so to speak ; and the 

 wonder and pathetic effect are lessened, though under 

 special circumstances it may be that fear or horror 

 might be more powerfully awakened. But the blend- 

 ing and harmony in the other case are complete, and 

 this it is which affects, delights, moves, and, it may be, 

 overcomes you. The wheat especially is a harp, but 

 not a thunder-harp : it is the eternal ^Eolian harp of 

 nature. In all such sounds heard in solitude, and in a 

 mood of responsive sympathy, there is the strangest 

 suggestion of human voices, far, inarticulate, im- 

 prisoned, or diffused, as you may choose to have it; 

 and it is because of this that there are such poetry and 

 pathos in these sights and sounds of nature. 



Lord Tennyson has applied the word "happy" to 

 the autumn fields in the first verse of that unique song 

 in " The Princess " : 



" Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 

 Tears from the depths of some divine despair 

 Rise in the heart, and gather in the eyes, 

 In looking on the happy autumn fields, 

 And thinking of the days that are no more." 



