MAY 103 



good the thousands of these little birds are doing me by 

 eating the seeds of harmful weeds in my stubborn fields against 

 the corn they have eaten ; the balance quickly turns in their 

 favour." Would that this kindly plea were also that of 

 many; and as the nightingale is loved because of its "lyre 

 of gold," the thrush and blackbird for their songs that ring 

 through " the greenest growth of Maytime," may this bird 

 in shabby brown be tolerated for the usefulness, known and 

 unknown, it affords to man. 



The sweetness of the noontide rain ! It is falling and 

 falling, its silvery threads shot with gold, enmeshing the 

 white and coral blossom. The sky is strangely dark with 

 lachrymal clouds, and how pleasant is the tuneful fall of the 

 Spring shower; listen to it falling on the river's breast in a 

 soft tinkle ; but a sweeter note is struck as it lisps its song 

 on the new-born leaves. But the rain will be brief; for 

 hark ! a lark is singing above the twinkling crests of the trees 

 that a first sunbeam has caught sure token of near bright 

 hours ! How fair the world lies, lovelier for the passed 

 shower ! The tulips have become a most fair lachrymary, 

 and the sunlight, flittering through interlaced boughs, dapple 

 paths with the most fanciful of shadow mosaics paths that 

 in summer are cool with a daytime twilight. In many a 

 garden forget-me-nots as with a blue mist envelop the car- 

 dinal and pure white tulips as they rise from out " the lover's 

 flower," above which the laburnum is ready to pour down its 

 cascade of yellow, and over all steals the scent of lilac and 

 narcissus. Purple-clad the iris vies in loyalty with the kingly 

 and ruddy gold of the wallflowers. Far from gardens and 

 haunts of men, over the sloping meadows skirting the glim- 

 mering masses of the gorse, throughout the noon the lapwing 



