Two herons, _Ardea herodias_,
with their long and slender limbs relieved against the sky, were
seen travelling high over our heads,--their lofty and silent
flight, as they were wending their way at evening, surely not to
alight in any marsh on the earth's surface, but, perchance, on
the other side of our atmosphere, a symbol for the ages to study,
whether impressed upon the sky, or sculptured amid the
hieroglyphics of Egypt. Bound to some northern meadow, they held
on their stately, stationary flight, like the storks in the
picture, and disappeared at length behind the clouds. Dense
flocks of blackbirds were winging their way along the river's
course, as if on a short evening pilgrimage to some shrine of
theirs, or to celebrate so fair a sunset.
"Therefore, as doth the pilgrim, whom the night
Hastes darkly to imprison on his way,
Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright
Of what's yet left thee of life's wasting day:
Thy sun posts westward, passed is thy morn,
And twice it is not given thee to be born."
The sun-setting presumed all men at leisure, and in a contemplative
mood; but the farmer's boy only whistled the more thoughtfully as
he drove his cows home from pasture, and the teamster refrained
from cracking his whip, and guided his team with a subdued voice.
The last vestiges of daylight at length disappeared, and as we
rowed silently along with our backs toward home through the
darkness, only a few stars being visible, we had little to say,
but sat absorbed in thought, or in silence listened to the
monotonous sound of our oars, a sort of rudimental music,
suitable for the ear of Night and the acoustics of her dimly
lighted halls;
"Pulsae referunt ad sidera valles,"
and the valleys echoed the sound to the stars.
As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were
reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that
the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on
mankind. It is recorded in the Chronicle of Bernaldez, that in
Columbus's first voyage the natives "pointed towards the heavens,
making signs that they believed that there was all power and
holiness." We have reason to be grateful for celestial
phenomena, for they chiefly answer to the ideal in man. The
stars are distant and unobtrusive, but bright and enduring as our
fairest and most memorable experiences. "Let the immortal depth
of your soul lead you, but earnestly extend your eyes upwards."
As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so
the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is
audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when
we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not
displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds
are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their
mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought
after. They are so far akin to Silence, that they are but
bubbles on her surface, which straightway burst, an evidence of
the strength and prolificness of the under-current; a faint
utterance of Silence, and then only agreeable to our auditory
nerves when they contrast themselves with and relieve the former.
In proportion as they do this, and are heighteners and
intensifiers of the Silence, they are harmony and purest melody.
