Sutherland the curlew and the lapwing have The 

 wheeled with wailing cry or long melancholy Awakener 

 flutelike whistle. The gorse, whose golden \Voods 

 fires have been lit, has everywhere heard the 

 prolonged sweet plaintive note of the yellow- 

 hammer. From the greening boughs the 

 woodpeckers call. 



The tides of Blossom have begun to flow. 

 The land soon will be inundated. Already 

 a far and wide forethrow of foam is flung 

 along the blackthorn hedges. Listen . . . 

 that chaffinch's blithe song comes from the 

 flowering almond ! . . . that pipit's brief lay 

 fell past yonder wild-pear ! In the meadows 

 the titlarks are running about looking in the 

 faces of the daisies, as children love to be 

 told. On the fenlands and mosses the 

 windy whimper of the redshank is heard like 

 the cry of a phantom : and like a * bogle,' 

 too, is the perturbing drumming of the snipe 

 falling swiftly on sloping wings back to the 

 marsh. 



The shores, the meadows, the uplands, on 

 each there is a continual rumour. It is the 

 sound of Spring. Listen . . . put your ear 

 to the throbbing earth that is so soon to be- 

 come the green world : you will hear a voice 

 like the voice which miraculously evades in the 

 hollow curves of a shell. Faint, mysterious, 



113 1 



