Page:Wisdom of the Wilderness (1923).pdf/116



NDER the first pale lilac wash of evening, just where the slow stream of the Lost Water slipped placidly from the open meadows into the osier and bulrush tangles of the swamp, a hermit thrush, perched in the topmost spray of a young elm tree, was fluting out his lonely and tranquil ecstasy to the last of the sunset. Spheral—spheral—oh—holy—holy—clear—he sang; and stopped abruptly, as if to let the brief, unfinished, but matchlessly pure and poignant cadence sink unjarred into the heart of the evening stillness. One minute—two minutes—went by; and the spaces of windless air were like a crystal tinged with faint violet. And then this most reticent of singers loosed again his few links of flawless sound—a strain which, more than any other bird song on this earth, leaves the hstener's heart aching exquisitely for its completion. Spheral—spheral—oh—holy—holy—but this time, as if seeking by further condensation to