144 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
tioning them in trees for song. I have not often 
known this wizard of the prairie to sing in any- 
thing capable of leaf or shadow. On fence post, 
phone post, or the swaying top of some prairie 
weed, there has this minstrel his station and 
thence spills his sunlit melody into the wind. 
Here, on a pine, sat this meadow lark and swung 
the bell in the steeple of his heart. How I loved 
the tryst—meadow lark and pine! What orches- 
tra, this, the sunlight playing its tune to the 
shadow music of the tearful sea, that was meadow 
lark and pine! I wondered how the meadow lark 
would thrill had he known the poetry of his 
melody. One was there hearing him who knew 
the witchery and loved it and will not forget it 
while he lives here or hereafter. Has God always 
some new thing forthcoming? Will every morn- 
ing in the long and sunny stretch of years eternal, 
have its new ecstasy? Shall there be new varia- 
tion on the dial of eternity so that shadow and 
sunshine shall never be the same in all the long 
unwearying wonder of the years which flute 
music immeasurable and with no tinge of sadness? 
The pine, swaying a little to the push of wind, 
and branches at measured music as of a dirge 
for soldier slain on field of war, and the meadow 
lark, yellow breast shining out, and from it 
rushing like the flow of running water where 
the ways are slanting but not steep, 
“Sweet and low, sweet and low, 
Wind of the western sea,” 
