I look for drought and heat when the cicada shrills. The rhythm of the cricket’s creak tells me if the night be hot or cold. I see the gathering rain-clouds when the tree-toad croaks and the hair-bird trills. The bluebird warbles, “it is spring”; a thousand throats proclaim the summer. Sounds from the woods, sounds from the waters, sounds from the fields, sounds from the air! The infinite beauty of sound! Are not Nature’s voices one of her most endearing charms?
How the gas-burner and window-pane have led me to digress! But even from my comfortable room it is sometimes pleasant to look out beyond the storm and bask in the luminousness of the primrose band.
VIII.
MY INDOOR GARDEN.
Tell, if thou canst, and truly, whence doth come
This camphire, storax, spikenard, galbanum;
These musks, these ambers, and those other smells
Sweet as the vestry of the oracles.