94 



My Wood. 



eyes, peering, hungry, remorseless, has sometimes 

 entered — perhaps with an eye to Mr. Rat — and startled 

 me ; and then with the sharpest thinnest cry on earth 

 — something between a squeak and a hiss — has quietly 

 turned and disappeared, when I stirred to warn it off. 

 The silence and restfulness of my wood is only em- 

 phasised by all this gentle language and movement 

 common and normal to it. 



Yes; moments of complete silence supervene now 

 and then on these various voices. " Waiting for the 

 next thing " is then the feeling that abides with me. 

 Hush ! hark ! there comes a something worth waiting for 

 — the sweetest note — soft, rich, mellow; now piercing 

 clear, now falling sweet as the subdued murmur of 

 falling water. Is that the nightingale? one might 

 question, for it is a very common error to suppose that 



the nightingale 

 does not sing by 

 day. But no, it 

 is not. It is the 

 beautiful, shy, 

 little garden- 

 warbler discours- 

 ing his sweet 

 music from the 

 top of the tree 

 he loves. He is 

 a migrant and 

 comes late, with 

 his wealth of sweet music to add to nature's choir. 

 What is it Tennyson sings? "All precious things 

 discovered late ; " for discovered read " arriving," and 

 it applies to the garden-warbler. A shy bird, yet he 

 haunts the abodes of men, and is often driven from 



GARDEN WARBLER. 



