DRAGON’S BLOOD 241 
lived. Of all those that I met, this particular beech 
with the centuries behind it and the centuries yet 
to come, was my special choice, for the beech is the 
slowest growing of all our trees. This one towered 
high overhead, while its roots plunged down deep 
into the living waters and its vast girth seemed as if 
nothing could shake it. 
That evening, as I lay against it and bargained for 
a share of its years, I thought that I felt the vast 
trunk move as if its life reached out to mine. Life 
is given to the tree and to the mammal. Why may 
they not meet on some common plane? Some one, 
some day, will learn the secret of that meeting-place. 
So I dreamed, when suddenly in the twilight 
beyond my thicket a song began. It started with a 
series of cool, clear, round notes, like those of the 
wood thrush but with a wilder timbre. In the world 
where that singer dwells, there is no fret and fever 
of life and strife of tongues. On and on the song 
flowed, cool and clear. Then the strain changed. 
Up and up with glorious sweeps the golden voice 
soared. It was as if the wood itself were speaking. 
There was in it youth and hope and spring and 
glories of dawns and sunsets and moonlight and the 
sound of the wind from far away. Again the world 
was young and unfallen, nor had the gates of Heaven 
closed. All the long-lost dreams of youth came true 
— while the hermit thrush sang. 
