454 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



for last summer. The sun stirs them before the roots 

 need be waked. The million grains of pollen in each 

 of them have evolved from a mass smaller than any 

 of them, have hardened and dried so that the smallest 

 shake sets them flying in the air. They are not millions 

 of perfectly shaped carven spheres, as the micro- 

 scope would have it, but just one of the scents of this 

 balmy day. To the gnats dancing above the yew 

 they may be whirling stones that cannot be avoided 

 and must be endured. To the waiting stigmas of 

 their own kind they are as oxygen to hot iron, the 

 thing that is thirsted for, and whose touch is destruc- 

 tion and change. Then they are myriads of stately 

 trees that would in a short time clothe the whole 

 country farther than we can see if it were not that 

 thousands of other forms have each the same ambition. 

 Out of their unspeakable war comes the peace of an 

 English landscape. 



