SPRING 



sweet smell. We saw the sloe in winter, bare as 

 a skeleton in the desert, but black ; we see it now 

 covered with white blossom, which we almost 

 mistook for snow unmelted. We saw the hedger 

 strip the hawthorn till it was pitiful in its naked- 

 ness ; we see it now covered with bursting buds, 

 and it will soon be the time of May-blossom. From 

 amid the withered leaves the wood-anemones are 

 rocking like foam-balls on a wreck-strewn sea ; 

 and from the ditches, just the other day black, 

 empty and uninviting, the marsh marigolds have 

 raised their golden cups their king-cups to be 

 filled with sunshine. We wished the birds farewell 

 in autumn as they passed overhead to lands that 

 keep the sun, and now they are gathering around 

 us again, and every swift's scream seems a shout 

 of victory. Every lark in the meadow sings a 

 promise. The butterflies seemed to fade away 

 with the withering flowers, but their successors are 

 flitting by. The shore-pools seemed but a little 

 while ago empty of life, and the ponds were thickly 

 frozen over, or sullen at all events, but now each is 

 beginning to be like a busy city. For as surely as 

 the old things pass away, so all things are made 

 new. From what seemed a sealed tomb, life has 

 arisen indeed. 



But there is a deeper sense in which these are 

 the days of new things. Spring is the time of 

 marrying, pairing, and mating. It is the time of 

 giving birth to new lives. It is the time when 

 new lives, begun long since, indeed begin to live. 

 In all these young lives there is what is new ; no 



13 



