490 



A SPRING GOSSIP. 



them to be poets, and their lives, — or, 

 at least, all that part of them passed in 

 delicious rambles in the woods, or sweet 

 toils in the garden, — pure poetry. How- 

 ever stupid the rest of creation may be, they, 

 at least, see and understand that those early 

 gifts of the year, yes, and the very spring 

 itself, are types of fairer and better things. 

 They, at least, feel that this wonderful re- 

 surrection of life and beauty out of the death- 

 sleep of winter, has a meaning in it that 

 should bring glad tears into our eyes, — 

 being, as it is, a foreshadowing of that 

 transformation and awakening of us all in 

 the spiritual spring of another and a higher 

 life. 



The flowers of spring are not so gay and 

 gorgeous as those of summer and autumn. 

 Excepting those flaunting gentlemen-ush- 

 ers — the Dutch Tulips — (which, indeed, 

 have been coaxed into gay liveries since 

 Mynheer fell sick of flori-mania,) the spring 

 blossoms are delicate, modest, and subdued 

 in colour, and with something more of fresh- 

 ness and vivacity about them than is com- 

 mon in the Lilies, Roses, and Dahlias of a 

 later and hotter time of the year. The 

 fact, that the Violet blooms in the spring, is 

 of itself enough to make the season dear to 

 us. We do not now mean the Pans}", or 

 three-coloured violet — the "Johnny-jump- 

 up" of the cottager — that little roguish co- 

 quette of a blossom, all animation and bold- 

 ness — but the true violet of the poets ; the 

 delicate, modest, retiring violet, dim — 



"But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 

 Or Cytherea's breath." 



The flower that has been loved, and praised, 

 and petted, and cultivated, at least three 

 thousand years, and is not in the least 

 spoiled by it ; nay, has all the unmistakea- 

 ble freshness still, of a nature ever young 

 and eternal. 



There is a great deal, too, in the associa- 



tions that cluster about spring flowers. 

 Take that early yellow flower, popularly 

 known as " Butter and Eggs," and the 

 most common bulb in all our gardens, 

 though introduced from abroad. It is not 

 handsome, certainly, though one always 

 welcomes its hardy face with pleasure ; but 

 when we know that it suggested that fine 

 passage to Shakspeare — 



" Daffodils 

 That come before the su-allow dares, and take 

 The winds of March with beauty" 



we feel that the flower is forever immor- 

 talized ; and though not half so handsome 

 as our native Blood-root, with its snowy 

 petals, or our wood Anemone, tinged like 

 the first blush of morning, yet still the Daf- 

 fodil, embalmed by poesy, like a fly in 

 amber, has a value given it by human 

 genius that causes it to stir the imagination 

 more than the most faultless and sculpture- 

 like Camellia that ever bloomed in marble 

 conservatory. 



A pleasant task it would be to linger over 

 the spring flowers, taking them up one by 

 one, and inhaling all their fragrance and 

 poetry, leisurely, — whether the cowslips, 

 hyacinths, daisies and hawthorns of the 

 garden, or the honeysuckles, trilliums, wild 

 moccasins, and liverworts of the woods. 

 But we should grow garrulous on the sub- 

 ject and the season, if we were to wander 

 thus into details. 



Among all the flowers of spring, there 

 are, however, few that surpass in delicacy, 

 freshness and beaut)', that common and po- 

 pular thing, an apple blossom. Certainly, 

 no one would plant an apple-tree in his 

 park or pleasure ground ; for, like a hard 

 day-laborer, it has a bent and bowed-down 

 look in its head and branches, that ill ac- 

 cords with the graceful bending of the elm, 

 or the well-rounded curve of the maple. 

 But as the day-laborer has a soul, which at 

 one time or another must blossom in all its 



