So remote seemed all human life that even memory turned from it and lost herself in silent meditation; so vast and mysterious was the life of Nature that the past and the future seemed part of the changeless present.

The light fell soft and dim through the thickly woven branches and among the densely clustered trunks; underneath, the deep masses of pine needles and the rich moss spread a carpet on which the heaviest footfall left the silence unbroken.

It was a place of dreams and mysteries.
Heed the old oracles, Ponder my spells; Song wakes in my pinnacles When the wind swells.
Soundeth the prophetic wind, The shadows shake on the rock behind, And the countless leaves of the pine are strings Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings.
Hearken! hearken! If thou wouldst know the mystic song Chanted when the sphere was young, Aloft, abroad, the paean swells; O wise man! hear'st thou half it tells?
Sitting there, with the deep peace of the place sinking into the soul, the solitude was full of companionship; the very silence seemed to give Nature a tone more commanding, an accent more thrilling.

At intervals the gusts of wind reaching the borders of the wood filled the air with distant murmurs which widened, deepened, approached, until they broke into a great wave of sound overhead, and then, receding, died in fainter and ever fainter sounds.

There was something in this sudden and unfamiliar roar of the pines that hinted at its kinship with the roar of the sea; but it had a different tone.