1 6 THE FRIENDSHIP OF NATURE 



The woods and lanes are astir with 

 the mysterious whispering of the open- 

 ing buds; the grass has grown deep in 

 the fields, and hides the fading violets, 

 saying as it closes over them : " Sleep 

 softly, I will protect you." Ceres, 

 who has been a laggard for weeks, has 

 suddenly awakened to her duty, as if 

 Pomona, anxious for her harvest, had 

 roughly shaken her. The garden is 

 blazing with a flame of late tulips; 

 bizarres, byblooms, flakes, and parrots, 

 with fringed and twisted petals. The 

 primulas show many hues, from gold 

 to deepest crimson with a yellow 

 centre, and mingle their perfume with 

 the various Narcissi, the double, whose 

 blooms rival the Gardenia, the trumpet 

 major, and the pheasant's eye, — the 

 poet's Narcissus. Masses of lilies-of- 

 the-valley are straggling into the full 

 sunlight, in spite of the tradition which 



