But such is the law. Go to
the sea or climb the mountain, and with the ruggedest and the savagest
you will find likewise the fairest and the most delicate. The
greatness and the minuteness of nature pass all understanding.
Ever since I entered the woods, even while listening to the lesser
songsters, or contemplating the silent forms about me, a strain has
reached my ears from out of the depths of the forest that to me is the
finest sound in nature,--the song of the hermit thrush. I often hear
him thus a long way off, sometimes over a quarter of a mile away, when
only the stronger and more perfect parts of his music reach me; and
through the general chorus of wrens and warblers I detect this sound
rising pure and serene, as if a spirit from some remote height were
slowly chanting a divine accompaniment. This song appeals to the
sentiment of the beautiful in me, and suggests a serene religious
beatitude as no other sound in nature does. It is perhaps more of an
evening than a morning hymn,
though I hear it at all hours of the day. It is very simple, and I
can hardly tell the secret of its charm. "O spheral, spheral!" he
seems to say; "O holy, holy! O clear away, clear away! O clear up,
clear up!" interspersed with the finest trills and the most delicate
preludes.
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