THE SEASON OF BUTTERCUPS. 28 



celandine that Wordsworth loved. On the hedges blue speedwells 

 peep up in cloudy clusters ; the chickweed and the cuckoo flower 

 show their silver petals ; the daisies sprinkle the sward with millions 

 of white starry eyes ; and the buttercups wreathe and twine over the 

 green mounds, the forest dimples, the grey stones, and the graves of a 

 former summer's beauty. And amid them all — 



The silver streams go singing in fine lines, — 



splashing, trickling, washing banks of moss where harebells, yet un- 

 folded, cluster ; creeping through reedy banks, where the water fowl 

 learn maternal joys ; past grassy meadows that swell with fatness, and 

 beneath broad, arching boughs, where a thousand wild birds congre- 

 gate amid the leafy darkness : — 



The Winter with his grisly storms no longer durst abide. 



The pleasant grass with lusty green the earth hath newly dyed ; 



The trees have leaves, the boughs do spread, new changed is the year, 



The water-brooks are clean sunk down, the pleasant boughs appear; 



The Spring is come, the goodly nymphs now dance in everyplace; — 



Thus hath the year most pleasantly of lately changed her face. 



Earl Sdrrey. 



More glorious still when the gardens heap up their crimson foam, and 

 apple orchards brim over with blossoms ; when the green corn appears 

 above the furrows, playing with every wind that skips over the field, 

 and clustering in thick patches round the skylark's nest, where the 

 brooding mother crouches, listening to her gallant as he dashes up- 

 wards to the sun, singing in the blue his roundelay. 



In the hedges nestle all manner of wild herbs and creatures, while 

 along the banks, the hawthorns stretch, like boundary- walls, for miles 

 and miles, making the air so full of fragrance that we seem wafted to 

 some old region of enchantment, amid the scenery of the " Fairy 

 Queen," or within reach of the " sleep soothing groves " of the " Castle 

 of Indolence." Good old friend ! flinging its perfume over the sheep- 

 fields, waving its boughs over the thatched roof, and suggesting to the 

 wayfarer the merry days of Robin Hood, when the good folks went 

 before daybreak to the woods, — 



To gather May-buskets and smelling brere, 



With hawthorn buds and sweet eglantine, 

 Aitd girlonds of roses, and soppes in wine. 



