22 The Strife of March 



Impatient to take a wider course, the brimstone 

 vanishes now and again at the lane's high corner, 

 or overtops the hedge-crown into the field beyond ; 

 but the world beyond his oasis is still inhospitable 

 and bare, and he soon returns again, pausing in a 

 moment's arrest above the dog-violets, or hanging 

 with hooked wings closed on the corolla of primrose 

 after primrose. He last drained nectar from some 

 scabious blossom of fading September ; and when 

 we see him plunge his long sucker once again into the 

 flowers, he appears a visible emblem of the endless 

 succession of the seasons. 



