Come ! Thou Song Sparrow 19 



the shores the huckleberry bushes are reddening 

 their new shoots, and the spice bushes and clethras 

 add their note of coming leafage and flowering. 

 Still linger also the varied leaves of last year on 

 the oaks, and the pines rise with green distinction 

 in the midst of the otherwise bare branches. 



A striking picture, the other day, was that of a 

 great balm-of-gilead poplar, its buds far advanced, 

 and in its top a crow, whose prismatic black was 

 relieved against the greenish yellow of the trunk 

 and boughs. The crows have been very abundant, 

 and hundreds have been seen before these last 

 snows feeding on grubs in the pastures around the 

 city. Now they have betaken themselves to the 

 Long Island Sound shores, until the snow shall 

 melt again. It is marvelous how these things re 

 cur, year after year, and our eyes are so blind and 

 our hearts so dull to realize how infinite life throbs 

 through the earth, and God is living in all that he 

 has sent out, to tell us that we are not the sole re 

 cipients of his spirit. 



We see through a glass darkly, and yet we may 

 see face to face as truly now as we ever shall. 

 No man hath seen God at any time, no man ever 

 will see him except in the myriad manifestations 

 of his life, around us at every step, and most 

 wonderfully present, no doubt, to the generations 

 that seek after a sign, in the opening of spring. 



