I bent my ear eagerly to the instrument again and heard—the soft rustle,
the breathing as of a sleeping forest. A plaintive note stole gently
out, more solemn and quiet than the chant of the leaves. The mournful
lay, forlorn, frightened, trembled on the air like the piteous wail of
some wounded creature. Then it grew stronger. Clear, brilliant, it burst
in a shower of silver sounds like a whole choir of birds in the glitter
of the tropical sunlight. But the mournful wail crept back, and the
lonely heartbroken strain was lost, while the leaves still whispered to
one another in the midnight.
Like the light of a distant star came to me this song of some
nightingale, thousands of years after the bird had mouldered to nothing.
At last my labor had been rewarded. As sound travels in waves, and these
waves are continually advancing as they go round and round the world,
therefore I would never hear the same sound over again at the same time,
but it passed beyond and another came in its stead.
All night I listened with my ear pressed to the instrument. I heard the
polished, well-studied compliments, the rustle of silks, and the quick
music of the dance at some banquet. I could almost see the brilliant
robes and glittering jewels of the waltzers, and the sheen of light, and
the mirrors. But hush! a cry, a stifled moan. Was that at the——No, the
music and the rustle of silk were gone.
“Mother, put your hand here,—I am tired, and my head feels hot and
strange. Is it night, already, that it has grown so dark? I am resting
now, for my book is almost done, and then, mother, we can go back to the
dear old home where the sun shines so bright and the honeysuckles are
heavy with perfume. And, mother, we will never be poor any more. I know
you are weary, for your cheeks are pale and your fingers are thin; but
they shall not touch a needle then, and you will grow better, mother,
and we will forget these long, long, bitter years. I will not write in
the evenings then, but sit with you and watch the twilight fade as we
used to do, and listen to the murmur of the frogs. I described the
little stream, our little stream, mother, in my book.—Hark! I hear the
splash of its waves now. Hold me by the hand tight, mother. I am tired,
but we are almost there. See! the house glimmers white through the
trees, and the red bird has built its nest again in the cedar. Put your
arm around me, mother, mother—”
Then single, echoless, the mother’s piercing cry went up—“O my God!”
Great Heaven! It would not always be music that I should hear. Into this
ear, where all the world poured its tales, sorrow and suffering and
death would come in turn with mirth and gladness.
I listened again. The long-drawn ahoy!—ahoy!—of the sailor rang out in
slumbrous musical monotone, now free, now muffled—gone. The gleeful
laugh of children at play, then the drunken boisterous shout of the
midnight reveler—What was that? A chime of bells, strange, sublime,
swimming in the air they made a cold, solemn harmony. But even over them
dashed the storm-blast of passion that sweeps continually up and down
the earth, and the harmony that bound them in peace broke up in a wild,
angry clamor, that set loose shrill screams which were swallowed up in a
savage tumult of discord, like a mad carnival of yelling demons. Then,
as if terrified by their own fiendish rage, they retreated shivering,
remorseful, and hushed themselves in hoarse whispers about the gray
belfry. It was the Carillonneur, Matthias Vander Gheyn, playing at
Louvain on the first of July, 1745.
Yes, my invention had proved a grand success. I had worked and worked in
order to give this instrument to the world; but now when it was
finished, strange to say, all my ambition, all my desire for fame left
me, and I was anxious only to guard it from discovery, to keep it
secret, to keep it more jealously than a miser hoards his gold. An
undefinable delight filled my soul that I alone out of all humanity
possessed this treasure, this great Ear of the World, for which kings
might have given up their thrones. Ah! they dreamed not of the wonders I
could relate. It was a keen, intense pleasure to see the public for
which I had toiled live on, deaf forever save to the few transient
sounds of the moment, while I, their slave, reveled in another world
above, beyond their’s. But they should never have this instrument; no,
not for kingdoms would I give it up, not for life itself.
It exerted a strange fascination over me, and in my eager desire to
preserve my secret a tormenting fear suddenly took possession of me that
some one might track me to the tower and discover all. It seemed as if
the people looked after me with curious faces as I passed. I went no
longer on the main road that led to the church, but, when I left my
room, took an opposite direction until out of sight, and then made a
circuit across the fields. I lived in a continual fear of betraying
myself, so that at night I closed my window and door lest I might talk
aloud in my sleep. I could never again bear the irksome duties of my
office, and when the college reopened I gave up my situation and took
lodgings in town. Still the dread of detection haunted me. Every day I
varied my route to the church, and every day the people seemed to stare
at me with a more curious gaze. Occasionally some of my old pupils came
to visit me, but they appeared constrained in my presence and were soon
gone. However, no one seemed to suspect my secret; perhaps all this was
merely the work of my imagination, for I had grown watchful and
reticent.
I hardly ate or slept. I lived perpetually in the past listening to the
echoing song of the Alpine shepherd; the rich, uncultivated soprano of
the Southern slave making strange wild melody. I heard grand organ
fugues rolling, sweeping over multitudes that kneeled in awe, while a
choir of voices broke into a gloria that seemed to sway the great
cathedral. The thrilling artistic voices of the far past rang again,
making my listening soul tremble in their magnificent harmony. It was
music of which we could not dream.
Then suddenly I determined to try the opera once more; perhaps I was
prejudiced: I had not been inside of a concert-room for more than a
year.
I went down to London. It was just at the opening of the season. I could
hardly wait that evening until the curtain rose; the orchestra was harsh
and discordant, the house hot and disagreeable, the gas painfully
bright. My restlessness had acquired a feverish pitch before the prima
donna made her appearance. Surely that voice was not the one before
which the world bowed! Malibran’s song stood out in my memory clearly
defined and complete, like a magnificent cathedral of pure marble, with
faultless arches and skillfully chiseled carvings, where the minarets
rose from wreaths of lilies and vine-leaves cut in bas-relief, and the
slender spire shot high, glittering yellow in the upper sunlight, its
golden arrow, burning like flame, pointing towards the East. But this
prima donna built only a flat, clumsy structure of wood ornamented by
gaudily painted lattice. I left the opera amid the deafening applause of
the audience with a smile of scorn upon my lips. Poor deluded creatures!
they knew nothing of music, they knew not what they were doing.
I went to St. Paul’s on the Sabbath. There was no worship in the
operatic voluntary sung by hired voices; it did not stir my soul, and
their cold hymns did not warm with praise to the Divine Creator, or sway
the vast pulseless congregation that came and went without one quickened
breath.
All this time I felt a singular, inexpressible pleasure in the
consciousness of my great secret, and I hurried back with eager haste.
In London I had accidentally met two or three of my old acquaintances. I
was not over glad to see them myself: as I have said, I had grown
utterly indifferent to society; but I almost felt ashamed when they
offered me every attention within their power, for I had not anticipated
it, nor was it deserved on my part. Now, when I returned, every body in
the street stopped to shake hands with me and inquire for my health. At
first, although I was surprised at the interest they manifested, I took
it merely as the common civility on meeting, but when the question was
repeated so particularly by each one, I thought it appeared strange, and
asked if they had ever heard to the contrary; no, oh no, they said, but
still I was astonished at the unusual care with which they all made the
same inquiry.
I went up to my room and walked directly to the glass. It was the first
time I had consciously looked into a mirror for many weeks. Good
Heavens! The mystery was explained now. _I could hardly recognize
myself._ At first the shock was so great that I stood gazing, almost
petrified. The demon of typhus fever could not have wrought a more
terrific change in my face if he had held it in his clutches for months.
My hair hung in long straggling locks around my neck. I was thin and
fearfully haggard. My eyes sunken far back in my head, looked out from
dark, deep hollows; my heavy black eyebrows were knit together by
wrinkles that made seams over my forehead; my fleshless cheeks clung
tight to the bone, and a bright red spot on either one was half covered
by thick beard. I had thought so little about my personal appearance
lately that I had utterly neglected my hair, and I wondered now that it
had given me no annoyance. I smiled while I still looked at myself. This
was the effect of the severe study and loss of sleep, and the excitement
under which I had labored for months, yes, for more than a year. I had
not been conscious of fatigue, but my work was done now and I would soon
regain my usual weight. I submitted myself immediately to the hands of a
barber, dressed with considerable care, and took another look in the
glass. My face appeared pinched and small since it had been freed from
beard. The caverns around my eyes seemed even larger, and the bright
color in my cheeks contrasted strangely with the extremely sallow tint
of my complexion. I turned away with an uncomfortable feeling, and
started on a circuitous route to the church, for I never trusted my
instrument in any other place.
It was a sober autumn day. Every thing looked dreary with that cold,
gray, sunless sky stretched overhead. The half-naked trees shivered a
little in their seared garments of ragged leaves. Occasionally a cat
walked along the fence-top, or stood trembling on three legs. Sometimes
a depressed bird suddenly tried to cheer its drooping spirits and
uttered a few sharp, discontented chirps. Just in front of me two boys
were playing ball on the roadside. As I passed I accidentally caught
this sentence:
“They say the professor ain’t just right in his head.”
For a moment I stood rooted to the ground; then wheeled round and cried
out fiercely, “What did you say?”
“Sir?”
“What was that you said just now?” I repeated still more fiercely.
The terrified boys looked at me an instant, then without answering
turned and ran as fast as fright could carry them.
So the mystery now was really explained! It was not sick the people
thought me, but crazy. I walked on with a queer feeling and began
vaguely to wonder why I had been so savage to those boys. The fact which
I had learned so suddenly certainly gave me a shock, but it was nothing
to me. What did I care, even if the people did think me crazy? Ah!
perhaps if I told my secret they would consider it a desperate case of
insanity. But the child’s words kept ringing in my ears until an idea
flashed upon me more terrifying than death itself. How did I know that I
was _not_ insane? How did I know that my great invention might be only
an hallucination of my brain?
Instantly a whole army of thoughts crowded up like ghostly witnesses to
affright me. I had studied myself to a shadow; my pallid face, with the
red spots on the cheeks and the blue hollows around the eyes, came
before my mental vision afresh. The fever in my veins told me I was
unnaturally excited. I had not slept a sound, dreamless sleep for weeks.
Perhaps in the long, long days and nights my brain, like my body, had
been overwrought; perhaps in my eager desire to succeed, in my desperate
determination, the power of my will had disordered my mind, and it was
all deception: the sounds, the music I had heard, merely the creation of
my diseased fancy, and the instrument I had handled useless metal. The
very idea was inexpressible torture to me. I could not bear that a
single doubt of its reality should exist; but, after once entering my
head, how would I ever be able to free myself from distrust? I could not
do it; I would be obliged to live always in uncertainty. It was
maddening: now I felt as if I might have struck the child in my rage if
I could have found him. Then suddenly it occurred to me, for the first
time, that my invention could easily be tested by some other person.
Almost instantly I rejected the thought, for it would compel me to
betray my secret, and in my strange infatuation I would rather have
destroyed the instrument. But the doubts of my sanity on this subject
returned upon me with tenfold strength, and again I thought in despair
of the only method left me by which they could ever be settled.
In the first shock, when the unlucky sentence fell upon my ear, I had
turned after the boys, and then walked on mechanically towards the town.
Now, when I looked up I found myself almost at the college gate. No one
was to be seen, only Mother Flinse with her basket on her arm was just
raising the latch. Half bewildered I turned hastily round and bent my
steps in the direction of my lodgings, while I absently wondered whether
that old woman had stood there ever since, since—when? I did not
recollect, but her shadow was long and slim—no, there were no shadows
this afternoon; it was sunless.
As I reached the stairs leading to my room, my trouble, which I had
forgotten for the moment, broke upon me anew. I dragged myself up and
sat down utterly overwhelmed. As I have said, I would sooner destroy the
instrument than give it to a thankless world; but to endure the
torturing doubt of its reality was impossible. Suddenly it occurred to
me that Mother Flinse was mute. I might get her to test my invention
without fear of betrayal, for she could neither speak nor write, and her
signs on this subject, if she attempted to explain, would be altogether
unintelligible to others. I sprang up in wild delight, then immediately
fell back in my chair with a hoarse laugh—Mother Flinse was _deaf_ as
well as dumb. I had not remembered that. I sat quietly a moment trying
to calm myself and think. Why need this make any difference? The
instrument ought to, at least it was possible that it might, remedy loss
of hearing. I too was deaf to these sounds in the air that it made
audible. They would have to be magnified to a greater degree for her. I
might set it for the present and use the full power of the instrument:
there certainly would be no harm in trying, at any rate, and if it
failed it would prove nothing, if it did not fail it would prove every
thing. Then a new difficulty presented itself. How could I entice the
old woman into the church?
I went back towards the college expecting to find her, but she was
nowhere to be seen, and I smiled that only a few moments ago I had
wondered if she did not always stand in the gateway. Once, I could not
exactly recall the time, I had passed her hut. I remembered distinctly
that there was a line full of old ragged clothes stretched across from
the fence to a decayed tree, and a bright red flannel petticoat blew and
flapped among the blackened branches. It was a miserable frame cabin,
set back from the Spring road, about half a mile out of town. There I
went in search of her.
The blasted tree stood out in bold relief against the drab sky. There
appeared no living thing about the dirty, besmoked hovel except one lean
rat, that squatted with quivering nose and stared a moment, then
retreated under the loose plank before the door, leaving its smellers
visible until I stepped upon the board. I knocked loudly without
receiving any reply; then, smiling at the useless ceremony I had
performed, pushed it open. The old woman, dressed in her red petticoat
and a torn calico frock, with a faded shawl drawn over her head, was
standing with her back towards me, picking over a pile of rags. She did
not move. I hesitated an instant, then walked in. The moment I put my
foot upon the floor she sprang quickly round. At first she remained
motionless, with her small, piercing gray eyes fixed upon me, holding a
piece of orange-and-black spotted muslin; evidently she recognized me,
for, suddenly dropping it, she began a series of wild gestures, grinning
until all the wrinkles of her skinny face converged in the region of her
mouth, where a few scattered teeth, long and sharp, gleamed strangely
white. A rim of grizzled hair stood out round the edge of the turbaned
shawl and set off the withered and watchful countenance of the
speechless old crone. The yellow, shriveled skin hung loosely about her
slim neck like leather, and her knotted hands were brown and dry as the
claws of an eagle.
I went through the motion of sweeping and pointed over my shoulder,
making her understand that I wished her to do some cleaning. She drew
the seams of her face into a new grimace by way of assent, and, putting
the piece of orange-and-black spotted muslin around her shoulders in
lieu of a cloak, preceded me out of the door. She started immediately in
the direction of the college, and I was obliged to take hold of her
before I could attract her attention; then, when I shook my head, she
regarded me in surprise, and fell once more into a series of frantic
gesticulations. With considerable trouble I made her comprehend that she
was merely to follow me. The old woman was by no means dull, and her
small, steel-gray eyes had a singular sharpness about them that is only
found in the deaf-mute, where they perform the part of the ear and
tongue. As soon as we came in sight of the church she was perfectly
satisfied. I walked up to the main entrance, turned the knob and shook
it, then suddenly felt in all my pockets, shook the door over, and felt
through all my pockets again. This hypocritical pantomime had the
desired effect. The old beldam slapped her hands together and poked her
lean finger at the hole of the lock, apparently amused that I had
forgotten the key. Then of her own accord she went round and tried the
other doors, but without success. As we passed the narrow window in the
rear I made a violent effort in knocking out the loose boards. The old
woman seemed greatly delighted, and when I crawled through willingly
followed. I gave her a brush, which fortunately one day I had discovered
lying in the vestibule, and left her in the church to dust, while I went
up in the tower to prepare and remove from sight all the tools which
were scattered about. I put them in a recess and screened it from view
by a map of the Holy Land. Then I took my instrument and carefully
adjusted it, putting on its utmost power.
In about an hour I went down and motioned to Mother Flinse that I wanted
her up stairs. She came directly after me without hesitation, and I felt
greatly relieved, for I saw that I would likely have no trouble with the
old woman. When we got into the tower she pointed down to the trees and
then upward, meaning, I presume, that it was high. I nodded, and taking
the instrument placed my ear to it for a moment. A loud blast of music,
like a dozen bands playing in concert, almost stunned me. She watched me
very attentively, but when I made signs for her to come and try she drew
back. I held up the instrument and went through all manner of motions
indicating that it would not hurt her, but she only shook her head. I
persevered in my endeavor to coax her until she seemed to gain courage
and walked up within a few feet of me, then suddenly stopped and
stretched out her hands for the instrument. As she did not seem afraid,
provided she had it herself, I saw that she took firm hold.
In my impatience to know the result of this experiment, I was obliged to
repeat my signs again and again before I could prevail upon her to raise
it to her ear. Then breathlessly I watched her face, a face I thought
which looked as if it might belong to some mummy that had been withering
for a thousand years. Suddenly it was convulsed as if by a galvanic
shock, then the shriveled features seemed to dilate, and a great light
flashed through them, transforming them almost into the radiance of
youth; a strange light as of some seraph had taken possession of the
wrinkled old frame and looked out at the gray eyes, making them shine
with unnatural beauty. No wonder the dumb countenance reflected a
brightness inexpressible, for the Spirit of Sound had just alighted with
silvery wings upon a silence of seventy years.
A heavy weight fell unconsciously from my breast while I stood almost
awed before this face, which was transfigured, as if it might have
caught a glimmer of that mystical morn when, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, we shall all be changed.
My instrument had stood the test; it was proved forever. I could no
longer cherish any doubts of its reality, and an indescribable peace
came into my soul, like a sudden awakening from some frightful dream. I
had not noticed the flight of time. A pale shadow hung already over the
trees—yes, and under them on the slime-covered stones. Ay! and a heavier
shadow than the coming night was even then gathering unseen its rayless
folds. The drab sky had blanched and broken, and the sinking sun poured
a fading light through its ragged fissures.
The old woman, as if wrapped in an enchantment, had hardly moved. I
tried vainly to catch her attention; she did not even appear conscious
of my presence. I walked up and shook her gently by the shoulder, and,
pointing to the setting sun, held out my hand for the instrument. She
looked at me a moment, with the singular unearthly beauty shining
through every feature; then suddenly clutching the trumpet tight between
her skinny claws, sprang backward towards the stairs, uttering a sound
that was neither human nor animal, that was not a wail or a scream, but
it fell upon my ears like some palpable horror. Merciful Heaven! Was
that thing yonder a woman? The shriveled, fleshless lips gaped apart,
and a small pointed tongue lurked behind five glittering, fang-like
teeth. The wild beast had suddenly been developed in the hag. Like a
hungry tigress defending its prey, she stood hugging the trumpet to her,
glaring at me with stretched neck and green eyes.
A savage fierceness roused within me when I found she would not give up
the instrument, and I rushed at her with hands ready to snatch back the
prize I valued more than my life—_or hers_; but, quicker than a hunted
animal, she turned and fled with it down the stairs, making the tower
ring with the hideous cries of her wordless voice. Swiftly—it seemed as
if the danger of losing the trumpet gave me wings to fly in pursuit—I
crossed the vestibule. She was not there. Every thing was silent, and I
darted with fleet steps down the dusky aisle of the church, when
suddenly the jarring idiotic sounds broke loose again, echoing up in the
organ-pipes and rattling along the galleries. The fiend sprang from
behind the altar, faced about an instant with flashing eyes and gleaming
teeth, then fled through the vestry-room into the passage. The sight of
her was fresh fuel to my rage, and it flamed into a frenzy that seemed
to burn the human element out of my soul. When I gained the steps
leading into the coal-room she was already in the window, but I cleared
the distance at a single bound and caught hold of her clothes as she
leaped down. I crawled through, but she clutched the instrument tighter.
I could not prize it out of her grasp; and in her ineffectual efforts to
free herself from my hold she made loud, grating cries, that seemed to
me to ring and reverberate all through the forest; but presently they
grew smothered, gurgled, then ceased. Her clasp relaxed in a convulsive
struggle, and the trumpet was in my possession. It was easily done, for
her neck was small and lean, and my hands made a circle strong as a
steel band.
The tremor died out of her frame and left it perfectly still. Through
the silence I could hear the hiss of a snake in the nettle-weeds, and
the flapping wings of some night bird fanned my face as it rushed
swiftly through the air in its low flight. The gray twilight had
deepened to gloom and the graves seemed to have given up their tenants.
The pale monuments stood out like shrouded specters. But all the dead in
that church-yard were not under ground, for on the wet grass at my feet
there was something stark and stiff, more frightful than any phantom of
imagination—something that the daylight would not rob of its ghastly
features. It must be put out of sight, yes, it must be hid, to save my
invention from discovery. The old hag might be missed, and if she was
found here it would ruin me and expose my secret. I placed the trumpet
on the window-ledge, and, carrying the grim burden in my arms, plunged
into the damp tangle of weeds and grass.
In a lonesome corner far back from the church, in the dense shade of
thorn-trees, among the wild brambles where poisonous vines grew,
slippery with the mould of forgotten years, unsought, uncared for by any
human hand, was a tomb. Its sides were half buried in the tall
underbrush, and the long slab had been broken once, for a black fissure
ran zigzag across the middle. In my muscles that night there was the
strength of two men. I lifted off one-half of the stone and heard the
lizards dart startled from their haunt, and felt the spiders crawl. When
the stone was replaced it covered more than the lizards or the spiders
in the dark space between the narrow walls.
As I have said, the instrument possessed a singular fascination over me.
I had grown to love it, not alone as a piece of mechanism for the
transmission of sound, but like a _living_ thing, and I replaced it in
the tower with the same pleasure one feels who has rescued a friend from
death. My listening ear never grew weary, but now I drew quickly away.
It was not music I heard, or the ripple of water, or the prattle of
merry tongues, but the harsh grating cries that had echoed in the
church, that had rattled and died out in the forest—that voice which was
not a voice. I shivered while I readjusted the instrument; perhaps it
was the night wind which chilled me, but the rasping sounds were louder
than before. _I could not exclude them._ There was no element of
superstition in my nature, and I tried it over again: still I heard
them—sometimes sharp, sometimes only a faint rumbling. Had the soul of
the deaf-mute come in retribution to haunt me and cry eternally in my
instrument? Perhaps on the morrow it would not disturb me, but there was
no difference. I could hear only it, though I drew out the trumpet for
vibrations hundreds of years old. I had rid myself of the withered hag
who would have stolen my treasure, but now I could not rid myself of her
invisible ghost. She had conquered, even through death, and come from
the spirit world to gain possession of the prize for which she had given
up her life. The instrument was no longer of any value to me, though
cherishing a vague hope I compelled myself to listen, even with
chattering teeth; for it was a terrible thing to hear these hoarse,
haunting cries of the dumb soul—of the soul I had strangled from its
body, a soul which I would have killed itself if it were possible. But
my hope was vain, and the trumpet had become not only worthless to me,
but an absolute horror.
Suddenly I determined to destroy it. I turned it over ready to dash it
in pieces, but it cost me a struggle to crush this work of my life, and
while I stood irresolute a small green-and-gold beetle crawled out of it
and dropped like a stone to the floor. The insect was an electric flash
to me, that dispelled the black gloom through which I had been battling.
It had likely fallen into the instrument down in the church-yard, or
when I laid it upon the window-sill, and the rasping of its wings,
magnified, had produced the sounds which resembled the strange grating
noise uttered by the deaf-mute.
Instantly I put the trumpet to my ear. Once more the music of the past
surged in. Voices, leaves, water, all murmured to me their changeful
melody; every zephyr wafting by was filled with broken but melodious
whispers.
Relieved from doubts, relieved from fears and threatening dangers, I
slept peacefully, dreamlessly as a child. With a feeling of rest to
which I had long been unused, I walked out in the soft clear morning.
Every thing seemed to have put on new life, for the sky was not gray or
sober, and the leaves, if they were brown, trimmed their edges in
scarlet, and if many had fallen, the squirrels played among them on the
ground. But suddenly the sky and the leaves and the squirrels might have
been blotted from existence. I did not see them, but I saw—_I saw Mother
Flinse come through the college gateway and walk slowly down the road!_
The large faded shawl pinned across her shoulders nearly covered the red
flannel petticoat, and the orange-and-black spotted muslin was wrapped
into a turban on her head. Without breathing, almost without feeling, I
watched the figure until at the corner it turned out of sight, and a
long dark outline on the grass behind it ran into the fence. The shadow!
Then it was not a ghost. Had the grave given up its dead? I would see.
At the church-yard the briers tore my face and clothes, but I plunged
deeper where the shade thickened under the thorn-trees. There in the
corner I stooped to lift the broken slab of a tomb, but all my strength
would not avail to move it. As I leaned over, bruising my hands in a
vain endeavor to raise it, my eyes fell for an instant on the stone, and
with a start I turned quickly and ran to the church; then I stopped—the
narrow fissure that cut zigzag across the slab on the tomb was filled
with green moss, and this window was nailed up, and hung full of heavy
cobwebs.
And my instrument?
Suddenly, while I stood there, some substance in my brain seemed to
break up—it was the fetters of monomania which had bound me since that
evening long ago, when, by the river in the oak-forest, I had heard the
robin trill.
No murder stained my soul: and there, beside the black waves of insanity
through which I had passed unharmed, I gave praise to the great
Creator—praise silent, but intense as Miriam’s song by the sea.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]