Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/106

96 dwellers on the outskirts of the village hear it occasionally. It sometimes comes into their yards. But go into the woods in a warm night at this season, and it is the prevailing sound. I hear now five or six at once. It is no more of ill-omen, therefore, here, than the night and the moonlight are. It is a bird not only of the woods, but of the night side of the woods. I hear some whippoorwills on hills, others in thick wooded vales, which ring hollow and cavernous, like an apartment or cellar, with their note, as when I hear the working of some artisan within an apartment. New beings have usurped the air we breathe, rounding nature, filling her crevices with sound. To sleep where you may hear the whippoorwill in your dreams.

I hear from this upland, whence I see Wachusett by day, a wagon crossing one of the bridges. I have no doubt that in some places to-night I should be sure to hear every carriage which crossed a bridge over the river, within the limits of Concord, for in such an hour and atmosphere the sense of hearing is wonderfully assisted, and asserts a new dignity. We become the Hearalls of the story. The planks of a bridge, struck like a bell swung near the earth, emit a very resonant and penetrating sound. And then it is to be considered that the bell is in this instance hung over water, and that the night air, not only