18 The Benison of Spring. 



My companion has told me in Spring that he has seen 

 the little blue butterflies, has told it as a piece of news, as 

 one of those signs of the season for which we watch and 

 wait. Of all the tokens these little blue butterflies, flitting 

 among the yellow flowered benzoin bushes, touch the sense 

 of our joy in the season most deeply, unless, indeed, it 

 may be those first twitterings of swallows. They are truly 

 divine birds and do make the season glad, and the farmer 

 hails them with pleasure when they return to his barn. 

 They speak, in their ways, a pleasant trustfulness that is 

 flattering to cold-hearted man, of whom so many innocent 

 creatures are so justly afraid. They fly in and out of the 

 open barn-door and about the house, and show by their 

 marvelous flights how easily they could be away, yet they 

 return again to man's protection. I am afraid that the joy 

 the swallows bring, as they come with the genial days, 

 cannot be set down in commonplace words. When I see 

 them fly and hear their twitter, it seems to me that I am 

 not half expressive enough; there is something still to 

 say, and I look in strange bewilderment, realizing an ever- 

 unutterable influence. 



