I felt then as we invariably feel
on such occasions, when some special motive has called us
forth in time to witness this heavenly change, as of a new
creation--
The miracle of diuturnity
Whose instancy unbeds the lark,
that all the days of my life on which I had not witnessed it
were wasted days!
O that unbedding of the lark! The world that was so still
before now all at once had a sound; not a single song and not
in one place, but a sound composed of a thousand individual
sounds, rising out of the dark earth at a distance on my right
hand and up into the dusky sky, spreading far and wide even as
the light was spreading on the opposite side of the heavens--a
sound as of multitudinous twanging, girding, and clashing
instruments, mingled with shrill piercing voices that were not
like the voices of earthly beings. They were not human nor
angelic, but passionless, and it was as if the whole visible
world, the dim grassy plain and the vast pale sky sprinkled
with paling stars, moonlit and dawnlit, had found a voice to
express the mystery and glory of the morning.
It was but eight minutes past two o'clock when this "unbedding
of the lark" began, and the heavenly music lasted about
fourteen minutes, then died down to silence, to recommence
about half an hour later. At first I wondered why the sound
was at a distance from the road on my right hand and not on my
left hand as well.
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