16 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



When first the pleasing Pleiades appear, 

 And grass-green meads pronounced the summer near, 

 Of chiefs a valiant band, the flower of Greece, 

 Had planned the emprise of the golden fleece. 



But leaving the shadowy records and traditions of buried years, let 

 us turn to the aspect of the grass itself, for it is everywhere a thing of 

 beauty, whether gladdening the mountain solitude with its angel 

 smile, greening the soft slopes of the mossy glades, where the red deer 

 wanders, and the child loves to play ; whether gliding down into the 

 deep, deep valleys, where the fountains murmur and the bees sing ; 

 whether clothing the sharp granite on the crown of the world, and 

 making a cushion for the only flower which there looks up to God, or 

 clinging like an eternal friendship to the root of the gnarled trees, 

 where in summer the rabbits burrow and the linnets sing, and in 

 winter the storm-cloud gathers and the branches crash; while the 

 hurricanes, let loose from the north, go howling in a chorus, scattering 

 the growths of ages as they sweep the march of God. 



The grass is green, and we love it for its dear homely light and 

 spring- tide beauty ; its colour gladdens the eye, and its promise cheers 

 the heart. The poets have ever loved it, and its sheeny lustre has 

 been the token of peace to many a weary soul. The morning star of 

 poetry shed the lustre of its lucid beams on nothing more joyfully 

 than the 



Gras in the grene mead. 



He loved it for its springing verdure, for the daisies which it che- 

 rished in its heart, the twinkling buds of summer which it gathered 

 to its breast, and for nothing more than its blessed greenness. 



Colours ne know I now, withoutea drede, 

 But swiche colours as growen in the mede. 



Chauc£B. 



And how could he refrain from loving it, for it was at the springing 

 season of the grass that his heart first felt the pulses of a poet's 

 love : — 



Blessed be Saint Valentine, 

 For on this day I chose you to be mine 

 Without repenting, my hearte-sweete. 



