THE PROCESSION OF SPRING 



In the heart of a big city there lived a very learned 

 botanist. Campylotropous^ quiniuplinerved, tetradyna- 

 mous, not a flower of them all could puzzle him — he 

 was a very learned botanist. 



None the less there was a great blank in his life, 

 and it was this. He had never seen the blue bird's- 

 eye speedwell. Brown and dry, indeed, he kept 

 within a book a thing that once had been that flower, 

 and he could look at that. But that is not to see the 

 bird's-eye speedwell. 



The forget-me-not he had seen, for the forget-me-not 

 is sold in penny bunches in the street. Not so the 

 speedwell. Once plucked, the bloom falls ofl" and ^ 

 floats down at your feet. The speedwell loves the bit 

 of bank that bounds its home. It knows no other 

 world, nor cares to know ; and it is well — the lark 

 knows where to find it when he drops from skies not 

 bluer than itself. 



