LONDON CHILDREN 69 



everywhere; a brave flower, for it rises so 

 early, and is one of the first signs of life 

 stirring again in the cold earth. Then the 

 wood-anemones shone like stars among the 

 brown leaves under the hazel wands and 

 ashpoles of the covert, and on the raised 

 bank near the vermin tree where the 

 marauder stoats and pirate crows hang, 

 the sweet violets drooped their heads, shy 

 in their loveliness. I passed by that bank 

 to-day, but the sweet violets have gone, 

 even as the wood-anemones are withering. 

 Nothing remains for long. But the first 

 swift screams high in the azure, his black 

 curved wings bearing him in fast circles, 

 less graceful than the swallow, who floats 

 on the bosom of the wind, then falls and 

 turns sharply rather than sweeps through 

 the air with the effortless thrusts of the 

 swift. So in the place of the violet's scent 

 I have the scream of the swift, and the 

 cuckoo calls above the dying wind-flowers. 

 I leant against a wooden fence, placed to 



