the Year. 



At the is awake, that the hands of the South are in 

 Turn^of the woods, that the eyes of the South are 

 looking into the white sleep of blossom and 

 flower, that the breath of the South has 

 awakened love, has stirred music in the hearts 

 of all the clans of song. But if we had not 

 ourselves been asleep we should not have 

 waited thus long for the exquisite surprise. 

 We should have known the divine conspiracy 

 by which the North and South are lovers, and 

 the West comrade to the East. The con- 

 spiracy of the eternal passion by which power 

 desires power, and dominion lusteth after 

 dominion : so that all the effort of the North 

 is to touch the lips of the South, all the dream 

 of the East is to reach the sunset-gardens of 

 the West. We should have known, when 

 out of December frost or January snow the 

 redbreast thrilled a canticle of joy, or the russet 

 moth sought his wingless love in windless 

 flame -set twilights, that the Grey Lover 

 already felt the breath from those ardent lips. 

 We should have realised that when across the 

 snow -silence the fieldfares no longer edged 

 southward, that when on the upland-pasture 

 the lapwing began his bridal change and in 

 the bare orchard the starling began to glisten 

 as though he had bathed at the edge of the 

 rainbow, or to wonder, in some ice-set mirror, 



62 



