All nature is musical. If you will listen, you can hear the leaves singing sweet songs, and the reeds along the river banks join in with their voices. The brooks and the rivers sing and laugh; they are so happy shining in the golden sun, or hiding in the cool shade.

The fairies have the flowers for their musical bells, and the grasses sing softly to the dear mother earth. But the sweetest songs are the carols of the merry birds, and the songs of happy children.

The winds are often noisy, but sometimes they seem to sing a musical song. Some instruments in the orchestra, the flute and the horn, are called wind instruments. There is a simple stringed instrument, called the Æolian harp. When the winds blow upon its sensitive, delicate strings, musical sounds are heard, and we say that Æolus, king of the winds, is playing upon his harp.

Long ago, the Lipari Islands, off the coast of Italy, were called the Æolian Islands. Here in a rocky cave lived Æolus and the winds, who were the children of Aurora and Æolus. All the winds were noisy and fond of strife except Zephyrus, the youngest. Æolus kept them fastened in the rocky cave, generally letting out but one at a time. They were always rushing to the iron doors, quarreling and fighting among themselves, and begging Æolus to let them out of the narrow cave.

Whenever one of the gods wished a storm at sea, he would ask Æolus to release his sons; they would rush out of the cave, sweeping over the seas in a whirlwind, raising the waves mountain high. Then the ships were in great danger from wave and rock, as the winds rolled the billows over the ships, or drove the vessels against the sharp cliffs.

Vergil, the great Latin poet, thus describes a storm raised by Æolus, at the request of Juno,—