But hark!  What was this?  The instant his head touched the ground and his eyes closed, the trees struck up something new.  Ah, now there came rhythm and melody!

Then all that other was only a prelude, such as is played at church before the hymn.

This was what he had felt the whole time, though he had not wanted to say it even in his mind.  The trees also knew what had happened.  It was on his account they tuned up so loudly the instant he appeared.  And now they sang of him—­there was no mistaking it now, when they thought him asleep.  Perhaps they did not wish him to hear how much they were making of him.

And what a song, what a song!  He lay all the while with his eyes shut, but could hear the better for that.  Not a sound was lost to him.

Ah, this was music!  It was not just the young trees at the edge of the road that made music now, but the whole forest.  There were organs and drums and trumpets; there were little thrush flutes and bullfinch pipes; there were gurgling brooks and singing water-sprites, tinkling bluebells and thrumming woodpeckers.

Never had he heard anything so beautiful, nor listened to music in just this way.  It rang in his ear; so that he could never forget it.

When the song was finished and the forest grew silent, he sprang to his feet as if startled from a dream.  Immediately he began to sing this hymn of the woods so as to fix it forever in his memory.

      The Empress’s father, for his part,
      Feels so happy in his heart.

Then came the refrain, which he had not been able to catch word for word, but anyhow he sang it about as it had sounded to him: 

      Austria, Portugal, Metz, Japan,
      Read the newspapers, if you can. 
      Boom, boom, boom, and roll. 
      Boom, boom.

      No gun be his but a sword of gold;
      Now a crown for a cap on his head behold! 
      Austria, Portugal, Metz, Japan,
      Read the newspapers, if you can. 
      Boom, boom, boom, and roll. 
      Boom, boom.

      Golden apples are his meat,
      No more of turnips shall he eat. 
      Austria, Portugal, Metz, Japan,
      Read the newspapers, if you can. 
      Boom, boom, boom, and roll. 
      Boom, boom.

      Court ladies clothed in bright array
      Bow as he passes on his way. 
      Austria, Portugal, Metz, Japan,
      Read the newspapers, if you can. 
      Boom, boom, boom, and roll. 
      Boom, boom.

      When he the forest proudly treads,
      All the tree-tops nod their heads. 
      Austria, Portugal, Metz, Japan,
      Read the newspapers, if you can. 
      Boom, boom, boom, and roll. 
      Boom, boom.

It was just this “boom, boom” that had sounded best of all to him.  With every boom he struck the ground hard with his stick and made his voice as deep and strong as he could.  He sang the song over and over again, till the forest fairly rang with it.