i 4 FROM A MIDDLESEX GARDEN 



out the winter. To and fro across the face of the field the 

 ploughman guides his plough ; patiently his well-groomed 

 team tread beside the newly-made furrow. When the end of 

 each new furrow is reached, how springlike comes the sound 

 of the ploughman's voice as he turns his horses. As I gaze 

 upon this scene in the warm January dawn, I count the long 

 even furrows on the face of the fields, and in doing so I see 

 transfigured before me the picture of our life ; the furrows 

 are the years which have been ours, upturned by the plough 

 of time, and I wonder if these furrows of the years of all of 

 us have been ploughed aright, if they were quite ready for the 

 reception of the seed, and if, when the whole acres of life 

 have been ploughed and the seed all sown, what will be our 

 harvest store ? Someone has somewhere said, touching upon 

 this human seed-sowing : " Good intentions are at least the 

 seed of good actions ; and every man ought to sow them, and 

 leave it to the soil and the seasons whether they come up or 

 not, and whether he or any other gathers the fruit." 



In these past warm days, with their foretaste of spring, 

 how the birds have sung ! Never do I remember hearing 

 them sing with such sweet melody so early in the year. What 

 a sweetness lingers around the open flowers which in many 

 gardens I notice have been wooed to show their fair faces so 

 early : the wallflowers, too, are making little splashes of 

 colour in the beds and beside the paths. How beautiful the 

 dawn-sky is at morn, when the night-clouds are parting and 

 every rift seems edged with a fringe of blended silver and 

 rose and gold. 



Who is that solitary figure who stands on the river's 

 bank ? He is the angler, to be sure : he stands contented 



