ELM IN FLOWER 



DAYS IN MY GARDEN 



willow have become exquisite soft grey pussy buds, 



round cushions hastening fast to grow large enough 



to carry their array of gold- 

 headed pins. 



Foremost among the nobler 



trees the common elm now leads, 



while oak and ash and beech 



seem hardly yet awake. Far 



above our heads in the great 



domed tops of the giant elms 

 there is a thicken- 

 ing of the highest 

 tiny twigs ; they are 

 studded with little 

 round bosses of 

 flowers, each fringed 

 with a mass of almost 

 crimson anthers, the colour 

 of their myriad hosts unseen unless 

 looked down upon, except at times when 

 their beauty is revealed, sunlit, against a 

 background of snow-laden clouds all leaden 



grey : just one of Nature's many colour schemes. 



PUSSY BUDS OF 



GOAT WILLOW 



