There Was A Fire In Lowell, As
We Judged, This Night, And We Saw The Horizon Blazing, And Heard
The Distant Alarm-Bells, As It Were A Faint Tinkling Music Borne
To These Woods.
But the most constant and memorable sound of a
summer's night, which we did not fail to hear every
Night
afterward, though at no time so incessantly and so favorably as
now, was the barking of the house-dogs, from the loudest and
hoarsest bark to the faintest aerial palpitation under the eaves
of heaven, from the patient but anxious mastiff to the timid and
wakeful terrier, at first loud and rapid, then faint and slow, to
be imitated only in a whisper; wow-wow-wow-wow - wo - wo - w - w.
Even in a retired and uninhabited district like this, it was a
sufficiency of sound for the ear of night, and more impressive
than any music. I have heard the voice of a hound, just before
daylight, while the stars were shining, from over the woods and
river, far in the horizon, when it sounded as sweet and melodious
as an instrument. The hounding of a dog pursuing a fox or other
animal in the horizon, may have first suggested the notes of the
hunting-horn to alternate with and relieve the lungs of the dog.
This natural bugle long resounded in the woods of the ancient
world before the horn was invented. The very dogs that sullenly
bay the moon from farm-yards in these nights excite more heroism
in our breasts than all the civil exhortations or war sermons of
the age.
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