THE INCOMING OF SUMMER 15 



dawn would be welcomed by his mellow 

 note, for over the sea and the land the 

 winged hosts were passing, urged by the 

 love they bore the thicket or the hedgerow 

 that had weaned them, and for which in 

 parched lands they had pined. From the 

 time of the early sweet violet the migrants 

 had been returning, and their journeyings 

 would continue till the time of the first 

 poppy. 



The willow birds perched on the wands 

 of the sallows, and the swallows twittered 

 as they glided. Two singing notes, oft 

 repeated, came from an ash-tree where an 

 olivine chiffchaff was piping his simple 

 music. Throughout the gusty winds of 

 March cjust-laden and with only the 

 celandines to tell of hope, he had been 

 piping by the brook, a wanderer whose 

 notes would be heard till the black- 

 berries of October. The allotted span of 

 the celandines was over, their rayed spokes 

 of yellow were bleached the wheatears 



