§ 22
One such spot I have, and from it many a lesson I have learned.—It is a great amphitheatre, Nature-made, vast and open. It slopes to the north and west, and all about it and about are green trees—green trees and shrubs and lowly plants. In the whole space I am the one spectator—save for little grasses that stand on tiptoe to look and listen; save for little weeds that nod their heads; and a beetle crawling heedless over dry and shining grains of sand. In the orchestral centre, where, in ancient Greece, should stand the lighted altar, there chances to be a little crimson maple; and behind and beyond rise verdant hills. Before me, as where should be the stage, stand, in green habiliments, beech and elm and fir; oak and cedar; lithe and virginal saplings; broad-shouldered pines, staid and stalwart—a goodly company, goodly and green, wondrous green; and for me they act and pose and sing.... The drama opens.
There is no fanfaronade. On the left, against a dove-grey cloud, the topmost twigs of a silver poplar rustle, the signal to commence. Gently, and with grace supreme, the boughs begin a cosmic song, and sway the while they chant. They dip and fall, and lightly rise; take hands and touch, and smile, and sing again. Troop after troop takes up the measure as the wind sweeps through the trees, and there is revealed to the eye and to the ear sound and motion obedient to an unseen power.... The movement deepens. Great masses join the dance, swell the vespertinal hymn. Huge and cumbrous boughs sweep back and forth, melodious, eloquent; and from tremulous leaf to swaying limb rises a choric song, beautiful, wonderful.... Of what is it that they speak?
Presently, beneath the dove-grey cloud, the red sun momentarily shows. Gleams strike the amphitheatre, the stage. My neighbour grasses glint in the sheen, the beetle's wing-sheaths glow; the sand grains glisten, and, overhead, the veined leaves of the larch, which before were black against the sky, become translucent to the light. The massed greens grow radiant; solitary boughs shake sunshine from their locks; the shrubs stand out overt; a divine gleesomeness fills all the wood.... Whence comes the mystic impulse?
Then slowly evening falls. The wind dies down. A fitful breeze, now warm with Summer's breath, now chill, strays aimless; and the major song sinks to a key in flats.—The sun sinks. The green shadows grow black; and where before was great leafage, is now a great gloom, in which even the white-stemmed birches lose their tapering limbs. Gone are the leaves of the larch; the shrubs hide; the beetle creeps out of sight. A far-off rill mingles a bass maestoso sob with its treble trill; and slowly, very slowly, a thin thin mist creates itself in every cranny of the dell. Only I am left, dull of hearing, miscomprehending, obtuse.
Only a little scene in an unending play; for all through the night, and for endless days and nights, before man was, and long after man will be, these leafy persons uplift that solemn chant, enact that choric dance: now frolicsome and free; now plaintive: now expectant, patient, still.... What is it that they hymn?