the Year. 



at his dun beak now grown yellow as the At the 

 sheltered crocus he knows of under the garden- Turn of 

 yew ... we should have realised that while 

 this dark -browed barbarian from the North 

 slept, the fair woman of the South had passed 

 smiling by, and kissed him as she passed. 



The breeding -change that may be seen 

 even before Christmas, the January stir that 

 becomes so obvious a week or so, or any day, 

 after the New Year is come, here and now we 

 are at the turn of the year. By mid-January, 

 even, here and there, the song-thrush and the 

 missel may have begun to build, and even the 

 great- tit's bell may tinkle in the coppice or 

 wind -spared russet oak -glade. Already the 

 snowdrop and the Christmas-rose, the green- 

 white aconite and the pale winter -iris are 

 become old acquaintances : many a primrose 

 may have adventured in shy retreats : any 

 day a wandering minstrel will spill a tinkle of 

 music from among the first yellow spray of 

 hazel catkins, the hedgesparrow may unloosen 

 song under the early-opening woodbine-buds, 

 the corn-bunting may crack his fairy-hammer 

 or the wren try his new-year flute among the 

 yellowing gorse : any day, at the sight of the 

 first nomad daisies or the first gay vagrant 

 dandelion, the yellow-hammer may become a 

 lover and a poet. It is this unchanging ' any- 



63 



