272 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



spires high is like a church. From it as the 

 winds pass I hear the sound of organ tones and 

 the singing of hymns in a language that is older 

 than man, a music whose legend is that of a world 

 before man was. Perhaps the first pines caught 

 the music of the morning stars when first they 

 sang hymns together and have made it a part of 

 the ritual of their worship ever since. No nota- 

 tion that man has devised can express this music 

 nor can any instrument which man has yet made 

 reproduce it. Its hymnal is mesozoic. On the 

 soft brown carpet of nave and transept of this 

 cathedral tree one's foot falls in hushed silence 

 and he who passes without his head bowed in 

 reverence for the solemnity of the place goes 

 with soul dulled to the higher spiritual influences 

 of the woods. 



On the other hand the white oaks always seem 

 dwelling houses for the pasture folk. Beneath 

 their wide-spreading horizontal branches I see 

 the little folks of the neighborhood at play. Tiny 

 pines sprout there, playing sedately as if already 

 touched with the thought of their coming solem- 

 nity. Little brown cedars, just a few inches high, 

 gambol on the green turf, and the barberry 

 bushes that are still too young to wear the gold 



