M The daughters of the year, 

 One after one, through that still garden pass, 

 Each garlanded with her peculiar flower*** 



TENNYSON. 



MARCH 



TTIGH above the budding poplars, the lark soars happy in 

 A A its singing : we watch it until it is lost in the mist of the 

 blue of the sky, our sight almost dazzled with the brightness 

 of the sunlight ! We have closed up the book of the " sere 

 and yellow leaf," with its record of rain-filled and cheerless 

 days and many mist-clothed hours, and now we turn once 

 more to the beautiful book of Spring, with its floral printed 

 and delicately worded pages. We all own its beauty, its tales 

 of love and laughter, its stories of sunshine, birds, and flowers, 

 its pictures of blue skies and fleecy clouds. As yet we are 

 but conning the preface, and the story which it tells to us 

 afresh year by year, is oh ! so old, and simple withal, with 

 its never-changing voices of songsters, and music of streams 

 and wind melodies ; the dancing meadow shadows among the 

 swaying boughs and sighing leaves and a thousand other 

 " common sweet delights." 



Fair are the budding branches of the hedgerows, where the 

 hawthorn and blackthorn are touched with a million pink 

 leaf buds ; here and there they have burst their coral bonds, 

 out of which have been fledged a tuft of palest foliage, making 

 patches of tenderest green among the bare stems. Below, 

 amid the lingering leaves of last year, the celandine has spread 

 its clustering glossy heart-shaped leaves around its first bright 

 flowers, bringing 



" News of Winter's vanishing." 



The Arum maculatum is also quickly unfurling its purple- 



