74 APRIL. 



April — the morning of the year, as March was its twi- 

 light, — that uncertain time when the clouds seem like 

 exiled wanderers over the blue field of light, hurrying in 

 disorganized cohorts to some place of rest or dissolution — 

 daily flatters us with hopes which she seems reluctant to 

 fulfil. But every invisible agent of nature is silently 

 weaving a drapery of verdure to spread around the foot- 

 steps of the more lovely month that is soon to arrive. We 

 see the beginnings of this work of resurrection in thou- 

 sands of small tufted rings of herbage scattered over the 

 fields, and daily multiplying, until every knoll is crowned 

 with blue, white, and crimson flowers that will join to 

 gladden the heyday of spring. 



When at length the south-wind calls together his ver- 

 nal messengers, and leads them forth in the sunshine to 

 their work of gladness, the frosty conqueror resigns his 

 sceptre, and beauty springs up in the place of desolation. 

 The bee rebuilds his honeyed masonry, the swelling buds 

 redden in the maples, and every spray of the forest and 

 orchard is brightened with a peculiar gloss that gives 

 character to the vernal tinting of the woods. The ices 

 that have bound the earth for half the year are dissolved ; 

 the mountain snows are spread out in fertilizing lakes 

 upon the plains, and the redwing pipes his garrulous 

 notes over the abiding-place of the trillium and the meadow 

 cowslip. The lowlands, so magnificent in autumn, when 

 glowing with a profusion of asters and golden-rods, are 

 now whitened with this sheet of glistening waters, put 

 into constant agitation by multitudes of frogs tumbling 

 about in the shallows while engaged in their croaking 

 frolics. 



April is the month of brilliant skies constantly shad- 

 owed by dark, rapidly moving clouds, of brown meadows 

 and plashy foot-paths. The barren hills are velveted with 

 moss of a perfect greenness, delicately shaded with a 



