94 IDLEHURST : 



versing was more than a parquetry of words, more 

 than an echo out of all the Classics ; to the days 

 which will come again, when plenary inspiration shall 

 be required and found in all who sing. 



May ist. Mayday, by the almanack ; but it is 

 vain to try to conjure the life of the old festival into 

 the common air. It was not so hard to do, even in 

 days which I can remember ; when Mayday implied 

 holiday and rambles flower-gathering, and the arrival 

 at the house-door of little rustics with their May- 

 boughs, devices in the pale harmonious colouring of 

 the season lilac, cowslip, orchis, bluebell displayed 

 with smiling pride and the traditional chant in honour 

 of Garland Day. To-day is as lovely as any in the 

 early Mays ; glistening clouds draw through the blue 

 which is deep ultramarine at the zenith, turquoise 

 near the verge ; clouds which lay belts and isles of 

 shadow across the leafing woods, barring the distance 

 with palest green and russet purple. The hillside over 

 against my own, with its larch plantations and oak 

 shaws, looks as though a dusty yellow or pale 

 emerald had been "scumbled," as a painter would 

 say, over the soft brown and silver-grey groundwork 

 of the woodland. Light is vivid and air is buoyant ; 

 the day is perfect ; but the keeping of it seems to 



