141 



of his business and at the same time, with Lampman, 

 thrill with the joy of the earth : 



The broad earth bids me forth. I rise 

 With lifted brow and upward eyes, 

 I bathe my spirit in blue skies, 



And taste the springs of life. 

 I feel the tumult of new birth; 

 I waken with the wakening earth; 

 I match the bluebird in her mirth; 



And wild with wind and sun, 

 A treasurer of immortal days, 

 I roam the glorious world with praise, 

 The hillsides and the wooded ways, 



Till earth and I are one.* 



Few know the birds, the common flowers, or even 

 the forest trees, and as for the native shrubs they are 

 quite nameless. This lack is general. An English 

 observer writes : " There is no help in visions of 

 Arcadia ; yet it is plain fact that in days gone by the 

 peasantry found life more than endurable. They had 

 their folk-songs, now utterly forgotten. They had 

 romances and fairy-lore, which their descendants could 

 no more appreciate than an idyll of Theocritus. If 

 your peasant love the fields which give him bread, he 

 will not think it hard to labor in them . . . There 

 was a time when the old English names of all our 

 flowers were common on rustic lips by which, indeed, 

 they were first uttered. The fact that flowers and 

 birds are well-nigh forgotten, together with the songs 

 and the elves, shows how advanced is the process of 

 rural disintegration.'^ 



* Archibald Lampman, " Lyrics of Earth." 



t " The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft," p. 202. 



