who move by night rustling in grass and tree. A hedgehog crossed
my path with a dull squeak, the bats shrilled high to the stars, a
white owl swept past me crying his hunting note, a beetle boomed
suddenly in my face; and above and through it all the nightingales
sang--and sang!

The night wind bent the listening trees, and the stars yearned
earthward to hear the song of deathless love. Louder and louder
the wonderful notes rose and fell in a passion of melody; and then
sank to rest on that low thrilling call which it is said Death once
heard, and stayed his hand.

They will scarcely sing again this year, these nightingales, for
they are late on the wing as it is. It seems as if on such nights
they sang as the swan sings, knowing it to be the last time--with
the lavish note of one who bids an eternal farewell.

At last there was silence. Sitting under the big beech tree, the
giant of the coppice, I rested my tired self in the lap of mother
earth, breathed of her breath and listened to her voice in the
quickening silence until my flesh came again as the flesh of a
little child, for it is true recreation to sit at the footstool of
God wrapped in a fold of His living robe, the while night smoothes
our tired face with her healing hands.

The grey dawn awoke and stole with trailing robes across earth's
floor. At her footsteps the birds roused from sleep and cried a
greeting; the sky flushed and paled conscious of coming splendour;
and overhead a file of swans passed with broad strong flight to the
reeded waters of the sequestered pool.