Afterwards, the human ear, penetrated by sounds of melody issuing from wind, wave, or bird, the rapt mind in strange and pleasing wonder contemplating the new and charming harmonies,--then it was that man received his first impressions, and took his first lessons in delightful symphony. Take from man all creative and performing power in music, leaving him only the ear to catch and the mind to comprehend the sounds, and there would still be left to him God's own music,--the music of Nature, which, springing as it did from eternity, shall last throughout eternity. Passing what must appear to human comprehension as vague (an attempt at the contemplation of which would be without profit in this connection), and what has been called the "music of the spheres,"[3] we may proceed to briefly touch upon those forms of natural music which are ever within our hearing, and which constantly afford us pleasure. [Footnote 3: Reference is supposed to be made to this in the Book of Job, in these words: "When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."] First let us go forth into the summer woods. The eye takes in the charming prospect,--the trees dressed in beautiful green; the "grassy carpet," parted ever and anon by a gliding, gurgling brooklet; the wild flower peeping up near the feet; a landscape of even surface, or at times pleasingly undulated. The atmosphere is freighted with a delightful fragrance; and from rustling bough, from warbling bird, from rippling brook, and from the joyous hum of insects almost innumerable, "The air is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, That give delight, and hurt not." All these, the beauties of animate and inanimate Nature, pleasantly affect the senses. But the chief influence there--the crowning glory of the groves--is the songs, the charming music of the birds, as they warble from tree to tree, untrammelled by the forms of art, their sweetest melodies. How often do their lightsome, inspiriting carollings ring out upon the morning air, persuasively calling us from our couches to listen in delight to Nature's minstrelsy! "After man," says a writer, "the birds occupy the highest rank in Nature's concerts. They make the woods, the gardens, and the fields resound with their merry warbles. Their warbled 'shake' has never been equalled by human gifts of voice, nor by art."