APRIL 



25 



I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made 

 Against the bitter East their barricade, 



And, guided by its sweet 

 Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell, 

 The trailing spring flower tinted like a shell 

 Amid dry leaves and mosses at my feet. 



WHITTIEK: The Trailing Arbutus. 

 The gray branches of the oaks, which have lost 

 still more of their leaves, seen against the pines 

 when the sun is rising and falling on them, how 

 rich and interesting ! Hear the faint, swelling, 

 far-off beat of a partridge. 



THOREAU: Early Spring in Massachusetts. 



26 



See the old barn on the meadow slope ; the 

 green seems to have oozed out from it, and to have 

 flowed slowly down the hill ; at a little distance it 

 is lost in the sere stubble. One can see where 

 every spring lies buried about the fields ; its in- 

 fluence is felt at the surface, and the turf is early 

 quickened there. Where the cattle have loved to 

 lie and ruminate in the warm summer twilight, 

 there the April sunshine loves to linger too, till 

 the sod thrills to new life. 



BURROUGHS: Signs and Seasons. 



