A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.

In this image of trees “worshiping” in a storm, Muir treats the natural world as animated and spiritually expressive rather than inert scenery. The storm’s violence becomes a kind of ecstatic music: branches “wave” and “toss” with “glorious enthusiasm,” suggesting that wildness is not merely destructive but also celebratory and life-affirming. When the wind drops, the forest seems quiet to human hearing, yet Muir insists the “songs never cease”—a reminder that nature’s vitality continues beyond our sensory limits and momentary attention. The passage also implies a discipline of perception: to truly hear the world, one must listen past obvious noise to the ongoing, subtler rhythms of living things.