I 56 ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



SPRING. 



IN all climates spring is beautiful. The birds begin to sing; they utter a few 

 joyful notes, and then wait for an answer in the silent woods. Those green- 

 coated musicians, the frogs, make holiday in the neighboring marshes. They, 

 too, belong to the orchestra of nature, whose vast theater is again opened, 

 though the doors have been so long bolted with icicles, and the scenery hung 

 with snow and frost like cobwebs. This is the prelude which announces the 

 opening of the scene. Already the grass shoots forth, the waters leap with 

 thrilling force through the veins of the earth, the sap through the veins of the 

 plants and trees, and the blood through the veins of man. What a thrill of 

 delight in spring-time ! What a joy in being and moving! Men are at work in 

 gardens, and in the air there is an odor of the fresh earth. The leaf-buds begin 

 to swell and blush. The white blossoms of the cherry hang upon the boughs 

 like snow-flakes ; and ere long our next-door neighbor will be completely hidden 

 from us by the dense green foliage. The May-flowers open their soft blue eyes. 

 Children are let loose in the fields and gardens. They hold buttercups under 

 each other's chins, to see if they love butter. And the little girls adorn them- 

 selves with chains and curls of dandelions ; pull out the yellow leaves to see, 

 if the school-boy loves them, and blow the down from the leafless stalk, to 

 find out if their mothers want them at home. And at night so cloudless and so 

 still ! Not a voice of living thing, not a whisper of leaf or waving bough, 

 not a breath of wind, not a sound upon the earth or in the air! And over- 

 head bends the blue sky, dewy and soft, and radiant with innumerable stars 

 like the inverted bell of some blue flower, sprinkled with golden dust, and 

 breathing fragrance. Or, if the heavens are overcast, it is no wild storm of 

 wind and rain, but clouds that melt and fall in showers. One does not wish to 

 sleep, but lies awake to hear the pleasant sound of the dropping rain. 



LONGFELLOW. 



Stranger, these gloomy boughs 

 Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit, 

 His only visitants a straggling sheep, 

 The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper; 

 And on these barren rocks, with fern and heath 

 And juniper and thistle sprinkled o'er, 

 Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour 

 A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here 

 An emblem of his own unfruitful life ; 

 And, lifting up his head, he then would gaze 

 On the more distant scene how lovely 'tis 

 Thou seest, and he would gaze till it became 

 Far lovelier, and his heart could not sustain 



The beauty, still more beauteous. 



WORDSWORTH. 



