something proceeding from nature--phantom, emanation, essence, I know
not what. My soul, not my sense, perceived it, standing with finger on
lips, there, close to me; its feet resting on the motionless water,
which gave no reflection of its image, the clear amber sunlight passing
undimmed through its substance. To my soul its spoken "Hush!" was
audible, and again, and yet again, it said "Hush!" until the tumult in
me was still, and I could not think my own thoughts. I could thereafter
only listen, breathless, straining my senses to catch some natural
sound, however faint. Far away in the dim distance, in some blue
pasture, a cow was lowing, and the recurring sound passed me like the
humming flight of an insect, then fainter still, like an imagined sound,
until it ceased. A withered leaf fell from the tree-top; I heard it
fluttering downwards, touching other leaves in its fall until the silent
grass received it. Then, as I listened for another leaf, suddenly from
overhead came the brief gushing melody of some late singer, a robin-like
sound, ringing out clear and distinct as a flourish on a clarionet:
brilliant, joyous, and unexpected, yet in keeping with that melancholy
quiet, affecting the mind like a spray of gold and scarlet embroidery on
a pale, neutral ground. The sun went down, and in setting, kindled the
boles of the old trees here and there into pillars of red fire, while
others in deeper shade looked by contrast like pillars of ebony; and
wherever the foliage was thinnest, the level rays shining through
imparted to the sere leaves a translucence and splendor that was like
the stained glass in the windows of some darkening cathedral. All along
the river a white mist began to rise, a slight wind sprang up and the
vapor drifted, drowning the reeds and bushes, and wreathing its ghostly
arms about the old trees: and watching the mist, and listening to the
"hallowed airs and symphonies" whispered by the low wind, I felt that
there was no longer any anger in my heart. Nature, and something in and
yet more than nature, had imparted her "soft influences" and healed her