MAY 115 



it is the hedgerow that sings her truest eulogy, for here the 

 fairest, frailest things find a home and have their birth ; here 

 the joyful morning birds sing their sweetest carols ; here in 

 the drowsy Summer noon butterflies glitter and bees hum ; 

 here moths, waiting for dusk, light the Summer night with 

 their silver wings ; here throughout the Winter are shielded 

 the tenderest roots ! 



Blossom-star, uncurling leaf, and home-come birds, all so 

 new, seem to fill the world to-day ; and yet things so old, 

 how old ! you say. You know them all so well by rote 

 that you expect them to appear as a matter of course. But 

 who does not find some one fresh pleasure at least, hitherto 

 unnoticed, be it some new shadow in the rifts of the 

 changeful rain-burdened sky, or the light among the orchard 

 blossom, where a thrush sits singing, singing in [the ending 

 rain ? 



