thless and awe-struck. Pushing quickly
to the wooded shore, I drew out the boat, turned it over, and crawled
under it just as the leaves stirred with the first cool, wet breath.

There was an instant's lull, a tremor through the ground; then the rending
and crunching of the wind monster in the oaks, the shriek of the forest
victim--and the wind was gone. The rain followed with fearful violence,
the lightning sizzled and cracked among the trees, and the thunder burst
just above the boat--all holding on to finish the wind's work.

It was soon over. The leaves were dripping when I crept out of my shell;
the afternoon sun was blinking through a million gleaming tears, and the
storm was rumbling far away, behind the swamp. A robin lighted upon a
branch over me, and set off its load of drops, which rattled down on my
boat's bottom like a charge of shot. I glided into the stream. Down the
pond where I had seen the sullen clouds was now an indescribable freshness
and glory of shining hills and shining sky. The air had been washed and
was still hanging across the heavens undried. The maple-leaves showed
silver; the flock of chimney-swifts had returned, and among them,
twinkling white and blue and brown, were tree-swallows and barn-swallows
squeaking in their flight like new harness; a pair of night-hawks played
back and forth across the water, too, awakened, probably, by the thunder,
or else mistaken in the green darkness of the storm, thinking it the
twilight; and the creek up and down as far as I could hear was ringing
with bird-calls.

There had been a perceptible rise and quickening of the current. It was
slightly roiled and carried a floatage of broken twigs, torn leaves, with
here and there a golden-green tulip-petal, like the broken wings of
butterflies.

I was in no hurry now, in no disquietude. The swamp and the storm were at
my back. Before me lay the pond, the pastures, and the roofs of a human
village--all bathed in the splendor of the year's divinest hour. It had
not been a perfect day, but these closing hours were perfect, so perfect
that they redeemed the whole, and not that day only: they were perfect
enough to have redeemed the whole of creation travailing till then in
pain.

Because I turned from all this sunset glory to find out what little bird
was making the very big fuss near by, and because, parting the foliage of
an arrow-wood bush, I looked with exquisite pleasure into the nest of a
white-eyed vireo