Chapter XIV 



|HE earth hath in it the 

 virtue of all herbs." Thus 

 saith an ancient worthy. 

 No doubt he had in mind 

 the quick spring earth, 

 washed clean by peniten- 

 tial floods, poignantly alive 

 with the livening of the frost. Even the 

 smell of it is vital especially waterside 

 earth. As you inhale it you cease to marvel 

 at the forwardness of waterside growth. 

 Trees of every sort there are half in leaf 

 when their kin-folk upland are barely bud- 

 ded. As for the low things, shrubby alders 

 and slim honey-dew trees, they stir before 

 the swallow dares even to dream of flight 

 and take earlier than March winds with 

 their beauty. 



The honey-dew tree is hardly a tree at 

 all, seldom gaining a height of fifteen feet. 

 The bark is smoothish and silver-gray, the 



