THE WILD APPLE 



The foam of the White Tide of blossom has 

 been flung across the land. It is already 

 ebbing from the blackthorn hedges ; the wild- 

 cherry herself is no longer so immaculately 

 snow-white. It drifts on the wind that has 

 wooed the wild -apple. The plum is like a 

 reef swept with surf. Has not the laurustinus 

 long been as cream -dappled as, later, the elder 

 will be in every hedgerow or green lane or 

 cottage -garden? Not that all the tides of 

 blossom are like fallen snow : is not the apple- 

 bloom itself flushed with the hearts of roses ? 

 Think of the flowering almond, that cloud of 

 shell-heart pink : of the delicate bloom of the 

 peach that lives on the south wind : of the 

 green-gold of the sallow catkins : of the blazing 

 yellow of the gorse : of the homely flowering- 

 currant, which even by mid-March had hung 

 out her gay tangle of pinky blooms : of the 

 purple-red of the deadnettle in the ditch, and 



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