Surely this is the signal, and in a moment I shall see the dim spaces between the trees peopled and animate.

There is a moment's pause, and then again that strange, mysterious song rings through the listening forest.

It touches me like a sudden revelation; I forget that for which I have waited; I only know that the woods have found their voice, and that I have fallen upon the sacred hour when the song is a prayer.

Who shall describe that wild, strange music of the hermit-thrush?
Who will ever hear it in the depths of the forest without a sudden thrill of joy and a sudden sense of pathos?
It is a note apart from the symphony to which the summer has moved across the fields and homes of men; it has no kinship with those flooding, liquid melodies which poured from feathered throats through the long golden days; there is a strain in it that was never caught under blue skies and in the safe nesting of the familiar fields; it is the voice of solitude suddenly breaking into sound; it is the speech of that other world so near our doors, and yet removed from us by uncounted centuries and unexplored experiences.
The spell of silence has been broken, and I venture softly toward the hidden fountain from which this unworldly song has flowed; but I am too slow and too late, and it remains to me a disembodied voice singing the "old, familiar things" of a past which becomes more and more distinct as I linger in the shadows of this ancient place.

As I walk slowly on, there grows upon me the sense of a life which for the most part makes no sound, and is all the deeper and richer because it is inarticulate.
The very thought of speech or companionship jars upon me; silence alone is possible for such hours and moods.