THE BROOK IN APRIL 



water. These Bose was shaking up in 

 wild delight and tossing up on the bank, 

 where they danced in clumsy, fish-out-of- 

 water dismay. These were the dancing 

 goblins; nor had I been very far wrong 

 about Daphne. There she stood still, 

 slender and dainty, only, just as when 

 pursued by Apollo of old, she had turned 

 into a shrub. There she stood, the 

 Daphne mezereum of the elder botanists, 

 the clustering blooms of pink sending 

 forth their faint, sweet odor that had 

 come so far down the pasture to Bose 

 and me and sent us hunting visions. 



To be sure, it was the first of April ! 

 But the joke was not all on us, for Bose 

 had for once found real game, albeit such 

 as foxhound never hunted before, and I 

 had found the spring. Two bluebirds, 

 house-hunting among the willows, caroled 

 in confirmation of it, and Apollo himself, 

 107 



