<h2><SPAN name="XLII" id="XLII"></SPAN>XLII</h2>
<p class="caption">NOVEMBER VOICES</p>
<p>With flowers and leaves, the bird
songs have faded out, and the hum and
chirp of insect life, the low and bleat of
herds and flocks afield, and the busy
sounds of husbandry have grown infrequent.
There are lapses of such silence
that the ear aches for some audible signal
of life; and then to appease it there
comes with the rising breeze the solemn
murmur of the pines like the song of
the sea on distant shores, the sibilant
whisper of the dead herbage, the clatter
of dry pods, and the fitful stir of fallen
leaves, like a scurry of ghostly feet fleeing
in affright at the sound of their own
passage.</p>
<p>The breeze puffs itself into a fury of
wind, and the writhing branches shriek
and moan and clash as if the lances of
phantom armies were crossed in wild
mêlée.<span class="pagenum">[206]</span></p>
<p>The woods are full of unlipped voices
speaking one with another in pleading,
in anger, in soft tones of endearment;
and one hears his name called so distinctly
that he answers and calls again,
but no answer is vouchsafed him, only
moans and shrieks and mocking laughter,
till one has enough of wild voices and
longs for a relapse of silence.</p>
<p>More softly it is broken when through
the still air comes the cheery note of
the chickadee and the little trumpet
of his comrade the nuthatch and far
away the muffled beat of the grouse's
drum, or from a distance the mellow
baying of a hound and its answering
echoes, swelling and dying on hilltop
or glen, or mingling in melodious confusion.</p>
<p>From skyward comes the clangor of
clarions, wild and musical, proclaiming
the march of gray cohorts of geese advancing
southward through the hills and
dales of cloudland. There come, too,
the quick whistling beat of wild ducks'
pinions, the cry of a belated plover, and
the creaking voice of a snipe. Then the<span class="pagenum">[207]</span>
bawling of a ploughman in a far-off field—and
farther away the rumble and shriek
of a railroad train—brings the listening
ear to earth again and its plodding busy
life.<span class="pagenum">[208]</span></p>
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