WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



cision only to rejoice when the veering gale again 

 brings a wasting storm. 



These are the moods and scenes the poets of 

 tradition attribute to April, but they belong to 

 May. The poets refuse to have their muse lo- 

 calized or to range themselves with isothermal 

 lines and records of meteorology. Probably they 

 were right originally in Europe, but in the United 

 States it is May when their "April" doings really 

 happen. Somebody ought to make a corrected 

 calendar for the use of American "nature-poets/' 

 Yet Lowell appreciated the facts, to wit : 



"When oaken woods with buds are pink, 

 And new-come birds each morning sing, 

 When fickle May on summer's brink 

 Pauses and knows not which to fling, 

 Whether fresh bud and bloom again 

 Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain." 



But towards the end of this month when the 

 fatal loth has been safely passed May quits her 

 coquetry, and, now sweet and sincere, smiles with 

 the surpassing loveliness of youth. Steadily, 

 hopefully, the leaves and buds have struggled 

 against the waning but vicious enmity of winter, 

 and day by day, though often hindered and checked 

 by adverse weather, have struggled forward. The 



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