neighbourhood, but the music of the forest was unquestionably brought out by a partial breeze, at some little distance. Any thing more solemn and beautiful could hardly be conceived: it was not like earthly instrumental strains, nor like what we deem the music of the spheres—it was the voice of nature expressing its rapture. The Apostle tells us that Creation groans and travails in its pangs—it does so; but it at times exchanges these utterances of pain for an outburst of the joy of its vitality.
This was the wandering harp of Orpheus seeking the lost Eurydice, the song of the Ribhus, the tale-chanting of Gunâdhya, the lay of the sons of Kalew, and the harping of Wainamoinen.
The Esthonian description of the charm of thi wood-music is very graphic, and may be set beside Ovid’s account of the springing of the trees at the playing of Orpheus.
“In the dusky pine-tree forest
Sat the eldest son of Kalew,
Singing ’neath a branching fir.
As from swelling throat he chanted,
Danced the fir-cones on the branches;
Every leaflet was astir.
All the larches thrill’d, and budding,
Burst to tufts of silky green;
Waved the pine-tops in the sunset,
