24 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



The Season of Buttercups is also the season of the sweet hirds' song. 

 It is the heyday of Nature, in which the blood trips more freshly 

 through the veins of every creature, and love stoops down once more 

 to possess all things with his warmth and vigour. How could the 

 little birds woo and wed at any other time ? How, except at the 

 Season of Buttercups ? when the world is surfeited with beauty, when 



Each leaf upon the trees doth shake with joy, 

 With joy the white clouds navigate the blue, 

 And on his painted wings, the butterfly, 

 Most splendid masker in this carnival, 

 Floats through the air in joy. 



Alexander Smith. 



How, but at that awakening season, when 



The clodded earth goes up in sweet breathed flowers ; 



In music dies poor human speech, 

 And into beauty blow these hearts of ours, 



When Love is born in each. 



Idem. 



It is this passion, dawning in the Season of Buttercups, which gives 

 new life to the heart of the most timid creature ; works a change in 

 the attitude and habit of the most courageous and the most retiring ; 

 gives the quadruped his noblest bearing, and the bird his brightest 

 plumage ; makes the creature, which before was startled at the falling 

 of a leaf, or the dancing of its own shadow, energetic, affectionate, and 

 fearless ; brings out the highest capabilities of the meanest and most 

 despised, and makes even a sparrow musical. There is the bonny 

 lark, — dweller on the brown earth, companion of the daisy, a little 

 tawny bird, shy, and crouching in the dust, — Love lifts him up into 

 the blue heaven to beat his wings against the morning star, and drown 

 the voices of angels with his torrent of song : — 



Seeming to rain down music from his wings, 

 And bathe his plumage in a fount of light. 



It carries him on the wings of a wild passion away into 



■ the abysses dim 



Of lornest space, in whose deeps regally 

 Suns and their bright broods swim ; 



and makes him the companion of the sunshine and the amber cloud, 



