This he at last reached, and halted his panting horse.
Here a new idea which had been haunting him since he entered the wood took fuller possession of him.

He had seen or known all this before! There was a strange familiarity either in these objects or in the impression or spell they left upon him.

He remembered the verses! Yes, this was the "underbrush" which the poetess had described: the gloom above and below, the light that seemed blown through it like the wind, the suggestion of hidden life beneath this tangled luxuriance, which she alone had penetrated,--all this was here.

But, more than that, here was the atmosphere that she had breathed into the plaintive melody of her verse.

It did not necessarily follow that Mr.Hamlin's translation of her sentiment was the correct one, or that the ideas her verses had provoked in his mind were at all what had been hers: in his easy susceptibility he was simply thrown into a corresponding mood of emotion and relieved himself with song.