SPRING. 



SPRING. 



BY W., NEW YORK. 



What a magic word ! How we delight to anticipate thy coming through the 

 long and dreary winter months ! We have awaited thee with anxiety. Thou art 

 here at last. We salute thee, we bid thee welcome. Thou comest to infuse joy 

 and gladness into every heart. Thou art the harbinger of many good things in 

 embryo. Thou comest decked and adorned like a youthful maiden, with floral 

 beauties entwined about thee. All nature rejoices. The feathered songsters are 

 glad ; they sing with sweeter notes ; they delight to bask in thy genial warmth ; 

 in harmony and love they select their mates, and build their little nests together ; 

 they toil and care for their young, showing all the maternal fondness that is possi- 

 ble for a kind and tender parent to exhibit. Shall man — intellectual man — fail 

 to profit by their example ? We trust not. Thou infusest new life and vigor in 

 the vegetable kingdom. Everything therein bids thee welcome, and puts on a 

 gladsome appearance at thy approach ; even the emerald turf is made to smile 

 and greet thee ; even the aquatic animals rejoice and sing thy praise. 



Spring, like youth, is a season of anticipation. It is then that everything looks 

 charming and lovely ; it is then we lay our plans ; it is then that we should dig, 

 plant, and delve. We anticipate much, and it is well that we do, for what is life 

 without anticipation. In truth, it is the joy of life itself, although we often anti- 

 cipate much that is never realized. Who can walk abroad on a lovely morning, 

 in May, when every tree and shrub is robed and adorned with the wedding gar- 

 ment of floral beauty — when the sense is greeted at every turn by vegetable odor 

 of the most enchanting kind — when the grass itself is made to smile with joy — 

 when the very insects are humming their notes of gladness, and greeting spring — 

 we say who can, and not feel his pulse beat with a quicker stroke, and his heart 

 leap with joy, and feel grateful to the beneficent Creator for all the beautiful and 

 lovely things that He in his goodness bestowed upon man, to cheer, to encourage, 

 to gladden his heart, and to bring forth grateful emotions that will lighten his 

 labor in his journey through life ? Who can doubt that spring is an emblem of 

 eternal joy and felicity ? We do not. We say, that ihe man who can walk 

 abroad and behold all these things, and not appreciate them, in some degree, is 

 unworthy of being called a man; he has a defect in his nature that he ought to be 

 sorry for. How kind of the Creator to bestow upon man so many rare gems of 

 floral beauty with which he may embellish, adorn, and beautify his home. What 

 more lovely, when one is travelling, than to see a cottage npstled among honey- 

 suckles and climbing roses ? How inviting to the traveller ! How it bespeaks 

 intelligence and virtue for the inmates ! How it denotes the abiding-place of in- 

 dustry and contentment ! Alas ! we arc sorry to say, that in some parts of our 

 country — even the old parts — those that have been settled for more than two 

 hundred years, there is but little of this taste to be seen. One may often travel 

 a whole day in some of the interior towns, and scarcely meet with anything better 

 than a common May rose. These things ought not to be so, and we are sure they 

 wall not long remain ; plenty of good examples exist in various parts of the coun- 

 try, and fashion is fast doing the work ; nothing can long withstand her sway, as 

 it is generally irresistible. In a few years, it will be as rare to sec a cottage without 

 honeysuckles and climbing roses as it is now rare to sec old-fashioned short pants 

 'ong stockings. 



