CHAPTER III 



THE CROCUS, AND SOME DREAMING 



The dreamer's season par excellence is tlie spring. 

 It is then that his dreams arise as irresistibly as 

 the flowers — and, in large measure, because of the 

 flowers. From time immemorial spring, and the 

 flowers of spring, have given the poet more occasion 

 to sing than perhaps has any other time or event 

 of the year. Nor do his dreamy songs seem 

 out of place. Quite the contrary : one accepts 

 them as of the very essentials of the season. And 

 this is the more remarkable when one thinks of 

 what spring really means : the breaking into energy 

 of business, stern and uncompromising, of every 

 living thing. It is the season whose rousing call 

 is to the strenuous worker, and amongst these, 

 obviously, to the dreamy poet. He hears the call, 

 understands it, and, after his own fashion, answers 

 it. He, then, is one of the necessary workers 

 summoned — proof that what is called dreaming, 

 howe\er low it may rank in the estimation of 



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