DOUBLE POETRY 143 
back out of hearing of the sea and have settled 
me as to slumber where no slumber was dreamed 
of, but just settled me to the droning of the sea- 
music which heard not the sea, the sea-music 
of the pines, when skilled as my heart is to dis- 
tinguish “seaborn music,” I confess I could not 
say what melodist was playing on its harp, sea 
or pine. ‘“Sea-born music” was I listener to. 
And often I have tried to skill my ear to dis- 
tinguish. The song of the pine was so like the 
song of the sea that I queried, Is not the sea 
tilting its wave-music over the dunes and am I 
not hearing sea voices and not pine-tree mourn- 
ful refrains? How the pine does dawdle with 
our hearts! A tremulous refrain is what you 
ever hear in listening to the pine tree at song. 
It is the mourning dove of the trees. As the 
mourning dove never has note save of sadness 
of widowhood, so the pine in its gladdest voices 
has never merry-making. It hymns funereal 
tunes. And yet does that subtract in aught 
from the dreamfulness of the music? Mortal 
are we, and the runes of death are stretched 
strings on which the winds of life discourse rare 
melody. Pine, thou melody somber as the dawn 
of winter evenings by the gray sea, and meadow 
lark, with thy voice free and graceful as the 
waving of the tassel of the corn, yet two to- 
gether, whence learnt ye this orchestral assonance? 
Never save this once had I had this double 
melody. Meadow larks are little given to sta- 
