The Marvelous Beauty of Spring 83 



ceeding. We must realize the exceptional beauty 

 of this fine family, and there is no time better than 

 now, when the early leafage is beginning to swell 

 from its buds in very various tints of red, and the 

 brilliant yellow or crimson keys are still, thanks 

 to the delays of the chill winds, augmenting their 

 splendour. 



The show of Nature in the woodland stretches 

 around our outlying farm lands is one of ex 

 traordinary beauty. Pause at the gray rail fence, 

 and across a little tract of bushy marsh view the 

 woods encompassing the prospect and hiding the 

 horizon, lifting into the sky their myriad boughs 

 and slender twigs, clad in the sweet grace of the 

 young leaves, a miraculous symphony of colour, 

 in tones refined to the ideal of harmonious rela 

 tion. In their midst the light wind weaves its 

 caresses, and they sway and swerve, not in dis 

 turbance, but in response. The sun, partly 

 veiled by the rising vapours of earth, fills all these 

 moving tree-tops with a tender golden radiance, 

 and when it touches a pine s dark masses among 

 the maples and birches and poplars, it lights it 

 suddenly with sparkling silver brilliance. It is 

 the magic of infinite life that fills, that surcharges, 

 the scene ; and Nature to our common eyes 

 transfigures the woodland and the near swamp, 

 and the lifting pasture-sidehill until they take on 



