flute or whistle of his ?) when the lark cannot At the 



rise in the polar air. when the missel-thrush Turn of 



• the Year 

 will not throw a challenge on the wet wind, 



and long before the most jubilant great-tit in 

 the forest will ring his early tinkling bell under 

 leafless boughs. For, even at Christmastide, 

 though rarely perhaps quite so early, the dark 

 bill will suddenly yellow, and a green and 

 purple sheen will come over the russet 

 plumage. Already Nature has looked north- 

 ward again. And, when she looks, there is at 

 once a first movement of the infinite sweet 

 trouble of the New Life once more. The 

 Creative Spirit is come again from the sun- 

 ways of the South. ' 'Twill be starling days 

 soon' — what is that but a homely way of 

 saying that the old year has not lapsed before 

 the new year has already stirred with the 

 divine throes of rebirth. * The King is dead : 

 Long live the King ! ' is the human analogue. 

 There is no interregnum. The cuckoo may 

 have fled before the swallow, the landrail 

 before the wild swan, but during the grey ebb 

 of autumn ten thousand wings have rustled 

 in the dawn as the migrants from oversea 

 descend at last on our English and Scottish 

 shores. A myriad host may have fled at the 

 equinox, or lingered till the wet winds of the 

 west and the freezing blasts of the north swept 



59 



