THE SEASON OF BUTTERCUPS. 



27 



Poets, painters, and gossipers, have all dealt with spring as a season 

 of beauty only, as a time of renewal and regeneration ; forgetting 

 that it is the season also of strife and terror, alternating between sun- 

 shine and storm, and, in some climates, the most to be dreaded for its 

 ravages of wind and wave. The vernal equinox is not more strik- 

 ingly marked here in its bright hues, its bursting of leaf-bud and 

 flower-bud, its softness of sunshine, and its gush of song, than it is 

 in other climes by its sweeping hurricanes, its sand-storms, and ice- 

 storms, its crash of forests, and fall of avalanches — for it is every- 

 where the season of rapid change, and the summer of fruitage which 

 follows it is but the ripening of the influence, which, in its birth, has 

 so many startling features. The spring of the world has its ana- 

 logies in the spring of time ; for in the ages the seasons are repeated, 

 and from the beginning to the end of creation, times, and seasons, 

 and things, are counterparts of each other. Geology, astronomy, 

 history, — each have their spring-time, — their Season of Buttercups. 

 Far back into the twilight of tradition, spring shows its mask of 

 beauty, and its phase of many-coloured strife. The mountain- 

 heights that crown the world were the growths of former springs of 

 forces, as buttercups are now the growths of fair springs of sunshine. 

 Entombed within the rocky ramparts are the ferns and flowers of that 

 old season of renewal, and beside those very plants are the indelible 

 traces of up-heaving forces, writhings, fusings, and contortions, by 

 which the giant masses were blasted and flung about the world, — 

 played with, as the March hurricane now plays with the stray feather 

 of a bird, or as the ocean, whirled in the equinox, plays with the 

 froth that forms the crests of its waves. Spring in the world and 

 spring in man are only different sides of the same fact. Infancy 

 opens into youth, like the unfolding of a flower. All is promise ; the 

 blossom of life breaks upon the ruddy cheek ; the freshness of 

 spring-life is there ; the laughing lip and the daisy light of boyhood's 

 eye proclaim how lovely is the stormless spring. But the equinox 

 of life comes on, and fierce passions rage ; March hurricanes ride 

 upon the breath ; March madness usurps the will ; the heart becomes 

 a region of storm and tempest ; and sometimes the spring folly 

 withers the blossom which should light up manhood's summer. 



It has its use, this spring of beauty in Nature, this spring of 

 passion in Man. As the winds try the branches, and the frosts try the 

 buds, sweeping away those that are not worthy to bear fruit, so the 



