St. that greenness will creep to the grass, that 



Bridget birds will seek the bushes, that song will come 

 Shores to them, and that everywhere a new gladness 

 will be abroad. By these signs is St. Bridget 

 of the Shores known. One, perhaps, must 

 live in the remote places, and where wind 

 and cloud, rain and tempest, great tides and 

 uprising floods are the common companions 

 of day and night, in order to realise the joy 

 with which things so simple are welcomed. 

 To see the bright sunsweet face of the 

 dandelion once more — an dealan JDhe, the 

 little flame of God, am bear nan Bhrighde, St. 

 Bride's forerunner — what a joy this is. It 

 comes into the grass like a sunray. Often 

 before the new green is in the blade it flaunts 

 its bright laughter in the sere bent. It will lie 

 in ditches and stare at the sun. It will climb 

 broken walls, and lean from nooks and corners. 

 It will come close to the sands and rocks, 

 sometimes will even join company with the 

 sea-pink, though it cannot find footing where 

 later the bindweed and the horned poppy, 

 those children of the seawind who love to be 

 near and yet shrink from the spray of the salt 

 wave, defy wind and rain. It is worthier the 

 name ' Traveller's Joy ' than the wild clematis 

 of the autumnal hedgerows : for its bright 

 yellow leaps at one from the roadside like a 



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