FOOTSTEPS OF THE SEASONS. 18^ 



" Who does not -welcome Spring's sweet gentleness, 

 That, like a friend, long waited for in vain, 

 Comes laughing in, and wafcs away distress, 

 Sending its joy through spirit and through plain ? 



HOWITT. 



After the earth has been rendered desolate by the unsparing hand 

 of winter, the trees bereft of their green garments, the flowers buried 

 in their graves, and the land parched up by crackling frosts, or buried 

 beneath rolling floods, the gentle Spring comes with lightsome heart 

 and sunny smile, bringing wiih her the golden sunshine of another 

 world, and the joyous tears of angels made holy by the breaih of God, 

 to revive the worn heart of nature. She comes with tearful eyes, and 

 sunny feet, and golden tresses dripping from the crystal waters of her 

 sheeny home, to fling gold, and green, and beauty, and perfume over 

 all the budding and replenished earth. Birds leave their sunny skies 

 afar to greet her with their songs ; the breezes come from the warm 

 south, toiling their long journey across the wide, wide sea, to gather 

 up the odours which she scatters over hill and dale ; the flowers wake 

 up from their long winter sleep to gaze upon her loving smiles ; and 

 the broad, green earth exults for its verdurous beauty, and bounds 

 with a lusty and impassioned joy. 



At her fairy touch, the emerald gates of the season fly open, and 

 display a Wide expanse of beauty — a landscape glittering in slanting 

 sunlight, with swelling uplands gliding away into the distance like 

 gently heaving waves ; and beyond all, the dark green lands of sum- 

 mer, where the primeval forests stretch away in their grandeur, and 

 where the breezes float over valley and stream, laden with the odours 

 of wild thyme, and resonant with the dreamy music of the wild. 



As the new light spreads over the earth, old Winter gazes out from 

 his sleety lair, and when his glazed eyes meet her serene and lovely 

 smile, his teeth chatter with dread, for he knows that now his empire 

 must fall. He sends forth a bleak north wind among the ghastly 

 skeletons of last summer, and over the new buds of spring, and this, 

 overhearing the husky rustling of the crisped reeds, which whisper 

 with chattering and frozen breath, severs them with his keen shears, 

 and hurls them prostrate on the waters of the marsh, blanched, 

 withered, and dead, as trophies of his master's potency. Sdll seeking 

 to regain his despotism, but too weak to fling his icy chains again upon 

 the earth, he crushes a few early flowers between his trembling fingers 



