A Spring Gossip 291 



robes of white, and pink, and blush, and immediately set 

 about divining what a noble crop you will have, "if noth- 

 ing happens" - - meaning, thereby, if everything happens as 

 nature for the most part makes it happen - - you, too, are a 

 little of a poet in spite of yourself. You imagine - - you 

 hope - - you believe - - and, from that delicate gossamer 

 fabric of peach blossoms, you conjure out of the future, 

 bushels of downy, ripe, ruddy, and palpable, though melting 

 rareripes, every one of which is such as was never seen but 

 at prize exhibitions, when gold medals bring out horticul- 

 tural prodigies. If this is not being a poet - - a practical 

 one, if you please, but still a poet - - then are there no gay 

 colors in peacocks' tails. 



And as for our lady readers in the country, who hang over 

 the sweet firstlings of the flowers that the spring gives us, 

 \vilh as fresh and as pure a delight every year as if the world 

 (and violets) were just new born, and had not been con- 

 vulsed, battered, and torn by earthquakes, wars, and revo- 

 lutions, for more than six thousand years; why, we need 

 not waste time in proving them to be poets, and their lives 

 - or at least all that part of them passed in delicious ram- 

 bles in the woods, or sweet toils in the garden - - pure 

 poetry. However stupid the rest of creation may be, they, 

 at least, see and understand that those early gifts of the 

 year, yes, and the very spring itself, are types of fairer and 

 better things. They, at least, feel that this wonderful resur- 

 rection of life and beauty out of the death-sleep of winter, 

 has a meaning in it that should bring glad tears into our 

 eyes, being, as it is, a foreshadowing of that transformation 

 and awakening of us all in the spiritual spring of another 

 and a higher life. 



The flowers of spring are not so gay and gorgeous as those 

 of summer and autumn. Except those flaunting gentlemen- 

 ushers the Dutch tulips (which, indeed, have been coaxed 

 into gay liveries since Mynheer fell sick of flori-mania), the 

 spring blossoms are delicate, modest, and subdued in color, 

 and with something more of freshness and vivacity about 

 them than is common in the lilies, roses, and dahlias of a 



