The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1850-12-17
Music of Winter.

love to listen to the falling of the SNOW.
1t is an unobtrusive and sweet music. You
may temper your heart 10 the serenest mood
by its low murmur, 1t is that kind of music
that only intrudes upon your ear when your
thoughts come languidly. You need not
hear it if your mind is not idle. 1t realizes
my dream of an other world, where music is
intuitve like thought, and comes only when
it is remembered.
And the frost, too, has a meodious min
strelsy." You will hear its crystals shoot
il the dead Of a clear night, as if the NOON
beams were splntering like arrows on the
ground and you listen TO it more earnestly
that it is the going on of one of the most
beautiful of natures deep mysteries. know
nothing so wonderful MS the shooting of a
crystal. Heaven has hidden its principle ms
yet from the inquisitive eye of the philoso-
pher, and we must be content to gaze on its
exquisite beauty, and listen in mute wonder
to the noise of lis invisible workmanship. It
is to find knowledge for us. We shall
comprehend it when we know how the
' morning stars sang together"
You would hardly look for music in the
drearness of the early winter. But before
the keener frosts set in, and while the warm
winds are yet stealing back occasionally, like
regrets of the departed summer, there will
come soft rain or heavy mist; and when
the north wind returns, there will be drops
suspended like earring jewels between the
lilamcnts of the silver tasses, and in the fea-
thery edges of the dark green hemlocks and
if the clearing up is not followed by a heavy
wind, they will all be frozen in their places
like wcll.set gems. The next morning, the
sun comes out, and by the middle of.he
calm, dazzling forenoon, they are loosened
from the close touch which sustained them,
and will drop at the slightest motion. If you
90 along up the south side of the wood at
that hour you will hear music. The dry
foliage of the summers shedding is scattered
over the ground, and the hard round drops
ring out clearly and distinctly as they are
shaken down by the stirring of the breeze.
1t is something like the running of deep and
rapid water, only more fi.ful and merrier
but to one who goes ont in nature with his
heart open, it is 4 pleasant music, and, in
contrast with the stern character of the sea-
son, delightful.
Winter has many other sounds that give
pleasure to The seeker for hidden sweetness
but they are too rare and accidental to be
described distinctly. The brooks have a
sullen mulllcd murmur under the frozen sur.
face the ice in the distant river heaves UP
with the swell Of the current and falls again
to the bank with prolonged echo, and the
woodman's axe rings cheertuly out from the
bosom of the unrobcd forest. These arc,
at best, however, but melancholy sounds and
like that cheerlcss season, they but drive in
the heart upon itself believe it is 50 or.
dered in heavens wisdom. We forget our,
selves in the enticement of the sweet sum.
mer. Its music and its loveliness win away
10 the scenes that link up the affections, and
we need hand TO turn US back tenderly
and hide from us the outward idols in whose
worship we are forgetting the higher and
more spiritual al'ars.-N. p. Wills.