n6 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



will be a whole year before there can be any 

 more of them ! There can be no business in 

 life more pressing than to wait in the still, 

 green world, and to absorb the young summer 

 with every breath. 



"Still?" Again a word is misapplied, for 

 who can call the garden still, when from 

 earliest, greying dawn, and the first lonely cry 

 of the little fly-catcher, there has been one 

 long, jubilant carnival of birds ? It is love time 

 with them, and not even what Dean Swift 

 called "high cherrytide" can make them for- 

 getful of the patient mates brooding under the 

 leaves, nor win them from the happy task of 

 lightening the world with their songs. To 

 speak the names of the birds is to bring back 

 old, unheard melodies, and to hear the voices 

 which answer to the June roll-call is to be 

 transported instantly to the Land of Pure 

 Delight, 



" Where everlasting spring abides 

 And never fading flowers." 



June is summer, but it is spring as well, the 

 fortissimo, as the hour in which the snowdrop 

 buds in February is its pianissimo. 



It is well that we need not be limited in 



