THE 



SBT^ • "■■II 







-g#>. 



JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



Vol. IV. 



MAY, 1850. 



No. 11. 



" If any man feels no joy in the spring, 

 then has he no warm blood in his veins ! " 

 So said one of the old dramatists, two hun- 

 dred years ago; and so we repeat his very 

 words in this month of May, eighteen hun- 

 dred and fifty. Not to feel the sweet influ- 

 ences of this young and creative season, is 

 indeed like being blind to the dewy bright- 

 ness of the rainbow, or deaf to the rich mu- 

 sic of the mocking bird. Why, everything 

 feels it ; the gushing, noisy brook ; the full- 

 throated robin; the swallows, circling and 

 sailing through the air. Even the old rocks 

 smile, and look less hard and stony; or, at 

 least, try to, by the help of the moss, lately 

 grown green in the rain and sunshine of 

 April. And, as Lowell has so finely said, 



Every clod feels a stir of might, 

 An instinct within it lliat readies and towers; 



And. grasping blindly above it for light, 

 Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers. 



From the time when the maple hangs out 

 its little tufts of ruddy threads on the wood- 

 side, or the first crocus astonishes us with 

 its audacity in embroidering the ground 

 with gold almost before the snow has left 

 it, till June flings us her first garlands of 

 roses to tell us that summer is at hand, all 

 is excitement in the country — real poetic 

 excitement — some spark of which, even the 

 dullest souls that follow the oxen, must feel. 

 Vol. iv. 34 



'• No matter how barren the past may have been, 

 'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green." 



And you, most sober and practical of men. 

 as you stand in your orchard -and see the 

 fruit trees all decked in spring robes of 

 white and pink and blush, and immedi- 

 ately set about divining what a noble crop 

 you will have, " if nothing happens" — 

 meaning, thereby, if everything happens, 

 as nature for the most part makes it hap- 

 pen — you, too, are a little of a poet in 

 spite of yourself. You imagine — you hope 

 — you believe — and, from that delicate gos- 

 samer fabric of peach blossoms, you con- 

 jure out of the future, bushels of downy, 

 ripe, ruddy, and palpable, though melting 

 rareripes, every one of which is such as was 

 never seen but at prize exhibitions, when 

 gold medals bring out horticultural prodi- 

 gies. If this is not being a poet — a practical 

 one, if you please, but still a poet — then 

 are there no gay colours in peacock's tails. 

 And as for our lady readers in the coun- 

 try, who hang over the sweet firstlings of 

 the flowers that the spring gives us, with 

 as fresh and as pure a delight every year 

 as if the world (and violets) were just new 

 born, and had not been convulsed, battered 

 and torn by earthquakes, wars, and revolu- 

 tions, for more than six thousand years; — 

 why, we need not waste time in proving 



