ROUND A LONDON COPSES- 



thing in the sense of morning lifts the heart up to 

 the sun. The light, the air, the waving branches 

 speak ; the earth and life seem boundless at that 

 moment. In this it is the same on the verge of 

 the artificial City as when the rays come stream- 

 ing through the pure atmosphere of the Downs. 

 While thus thinking, suddenly there rang out three 

 clear, trumpet-like notes from a tree at the edge of 

 the copse by the garden. A softer song followed, 

 and then again the same three notes, whose wild 

 sweetness echoed through the wood. 



The voice of the missel-thrush sounded not only 

 close at hand and in the room, but repeated itself 

 as it floated away, as the bugle-call does. He is 

 the trumpeter of spring : Lord of March, his proud 

 call challenges the woods ; there are none who can 

 answer. Listen for the missel-thrush : when he 

 sings the snow may fall, the rain drift, but not for 

 long; the violets are near at hand. The nest was 

 in a birch visible from the garden, and that season 

 seemed to be the missel-thrush's. Another 'year 

 the cuckoos had possession. 



There is a detached ash tree in the field by the 

 copse ; it stands apart, and about sixty or seventy 

 yards from the garden. A cuckoo came to this 

 ash every morning, and called there for an hour at 

 a time, his notes echoing along the building, one 

 following the other as wavelets roll on the summer 

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