Hamadryad

The hamadryades have gone, like the golden fancies of which they were engendered—morning dreams of a young world scarce awake, but full of freshness and beauty. Yet often will the thought, or rather the fancy, come across me, that this wailing but most musical noise—heard in the dim evening, when every tree has a separate sound like a separate instrument, and every leaf a differing tone like the differing notes—is the piteous lament of some nymph pent within the gray and mossy trunk whence she may never more emerge in visible loveliness.

The various supports, rafters, braces and plates are of pandanus logs of a rich oily brown, and make one think of a sylvan cathedral where hamadryads might very well dance, where Syrinx might be chased by Pan, Daphne by Apollo, and various other heathen rites take place in the dark hours before the dawn.