62 IValks in New England 



ourselves with perpetual summer, skies always 

 sweet and bloom ever fair, fruit beside blossom 

 and trees never bare, birds that do not depart, 

 and all unchanging luxury and unresting perfec 

 tion, would it not grow tedious ? Could our New 

 England virtues live where 



Droops the heavy blossomed bower, hangs the heavy- 

 fruited tree, 



Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of 

 sea? 



April is a charming creature at times, full of coy 

 and pretty caprices, but one does not get very 

 intimate with her, there is commonly a distant 

 chilliness in her smiles, and it takes a brave wooer 

 to fall heartily in love with her. Yet the earth is 

 waking up leisurely, day by day, as she traverses 

 the old paths. We see the grass springing green 

 and hear the robins and the bluebirds ; even a few 

 fire-hang-birds are prospecting in couples ; the 

 wild geese fly high northward ; the lilac bushes 

 swell their leaf-buds, and alders and black birches 

 are shaking pollen from their tassels. There is a 

 treasure of charm in the sunny valleys that lie in 

 the hearts of the hills, for although there is no 

 richness of colour and scarcely a breath of fragrance 

 in their spaces, there is an indefinable expectation 

 in the air, and the eye, lacking the greater things 



