The Arizona sentinel., 1886-12-11

recurrent and perplexing cry in rude
 instrument formed by the crossing of
 two branches, of which the one sawed
 upon the other like violin bow drawn
 across a string. Both bow and string,
 stout and tough of fiber, were worn
 and polished by long practice of that
 solitary note. Even the ightest wood
 has its hushed twitterings, its vanish.
 ings and inexplicable ruStlings.
 The copse- depths into little noises start.
 remember as a child being made
 curious, then awed, and gradually
 frightened by a low sound resembling a
 gentle, regular breathing, which pro-
 ceeded from under an alder-bush on
 the edge of a swampy thicket. I drew
 nearer and peeped in. The only live
 thing visible was brown thrush, who,
 indeed, was skulking away, as if caught
 in the act; but knew that was only
 his usual conscious, embarrassed air,
 and refused to suspect him of any con-
 nection with the disturbance. No
 other culprit appeared, and
 yet the even respirations contin-
 ued, till my courage, like that of
 Bob Acres, oozed away, and fled, not
 from an apparation, but from vibra-
 ton.
 More appalling than any sound is the
 silence and lonesomeness of the deep
 forest. One is haunted by the antiquity
 which is symboled Tn long moss boards,
 and which lies visible ali around in huge
 decaying trees, the unburied ancestors
 of the monarchs who are still standing
 strong in their girth of rings. It sug-
 gests the Paleozoic era and the forma- ton of coal to see those great trunks, hewn down by time and tempest, half sunken in the earth, and already per haps many seasons on in the existence which is theirs after death. Covered with moses and bright flung, they seem still half sentient and more wrought upon by age than the coal itself, which has forgotten and become inorganic so long ago that years do not count. Among those aged gen. erations the mountain climber is an anarchronism as well as an intruder, and is confronted at every step by the question what he doth there. Time has put obstacles in his way; to make any progress, he must chamber over logs, tack around powders, and avoid i'm penetrable places. There silence reigns, with a break now and then, which leaves it to settle again deeper than before. Even so busy and cheerful sound as the woodpecker's hammer divides and intensifes the stiffness with a certain solemnity.
 In ancient days of superstition the croaking of raven foreboded ill-hap. If there were an index expurgatory of New England birds, the jay, for all his heavenly Dlumage, would have to be placed in it. There are few bird notes more weird than that high scream of his, heard in the autumn across the brown fields or through the arches of the pine grove. It rings through all the aisles, making the quietude like a hush of apprehension.
 There are moments when, on entering the woods, one seems to have broken in upon some high festivity of Nature. A few hours before, in the same spot, life was suspended; one could walk from end to end of the wood path and hear not a breath, detect no movement save of noiseless insects or a little leaf-hued frog, in complexion like his carpet. That was at the noon-tide solstice, when a rose-colored light filtered through broad leaves, and one could fancy siestas in progress behind the jalousies ot green. But later in the day what group ings and activities! Squirrels start and scuttle of, thrushes beat nasty retreat through the underbrush, partridges spring up with sudden rustic of fright and indignation, and go whirring away in loud protest. You have disturbed the wood gods at their feast. the fairies at a gathering, and your sense of intru- sion is stronger than when you walked through the empty halls while they slept. There is something in these sylvan scat terings which suggests almost irresisti- ply the breaking-up of a fairy dance or a flight of shy nymphs. In early morn- ing such Interruptions give hints of whole night ot revelry, and tempt us to believe a little in ''the good people," and half regret their banishment from power. The pale nYmphs dancing at dawn, in landscape of Corot's s-are they not formed from the dawn itself, from the first shafts and glimmering of light on the forests edge? And may not myths have been evolved in the same 
 But of all imaginations that have peo- pied the woods, Shakespeare has most exquisitely fitted his creations into their shadows and sun-fiecks, ther green glades and hooks. MT. Burroughs, m one of his delightful papers on the nat ural history of the poets, has paid trib- ute to the wonderful accuracy of Shak- speare's incidental characterizations of birds and plants. But beyond this inti- mate knowledge of herb and songster and creeping thing, there is in his out door comedies breadth of greenery, a sense of the manifold harmonies andre pose of the forest, a consciousness of it's many tints and meanings. The oaks spread lovingly over Rosalind and the flowers grow about Perdita. Their speech does not disturb the quiet, nor ring false among the boughs They jest and love; they were born in courts and must return thither; yet they belong to the greenwood, and we are never quite to seeing them on the stage. To find Shakespeare face to face, how ever, with the woods and the sky, we turn to The Tempest. have always had a fancy that in this play, as in the Sonnets, the poet unlocked his heart" but that time or our own dullness has sealed it again. The Tempest seems to me more indicative of our relations to Nature than any other writing. We see in it her terrors, her beauty, and her inscru- Iableness. We are wrought upon by spell; but submit to it reverently. and it is kindly spell, while all our counter