Blossomed Boughs 69 



of May, and far more pleasing than the untinged 

 blossom of the pear. The wild pear is; a tree so rare 

 that it counts for nothing in the pageant of the 

 spring. But the wild crab-apple trees make a very 

 shrine of beauty in the midst of the woods of May ; 

 there is no picture so full of the sweetness of wild 

 English blossoms as some sun-chequered corner in a 

 wood of bluebells, where the apple-blossom hangs 

 between the earth's blue and the heaven's, and the 

 petals fall upon the wind in the mingled fragrance 

 of both flowers. Richness and purity are here 

 supremely combined ; colour and life abound, and 

 yet there is no hint in these May woods of that 

 sensuous burden which comes sometimes to the 

 later English summer, and in the summers of more 

 southern lands seems never far away. 



As the apple-blossom fades, the foam of the haw- 

 thorn begins to whiten. Yet the hawthorn-blossom 

 is not pure white ; when it first opens it is tinted 

 with cream-colour and sea-green, while the fading 

 petals are soiled with a dull pink stain. Since the 

 reform of our English calendar, the " May " is not 

 always seen fully in flower during the month after 

 which it is named. When our ancestors acclaimed 

 its blossom as the typical flower of May, their May 

 left out a week or more of the early part of our 

 month, and took in as much of June. This fact not 

 only vindicates their observation in this instance, 

 but adds much force to those poetic praises of the 

 month which in modern times it does not always 

 fully deserve. The May of Chaucer's calendar must, 

 indeed, have covered the most perfect period of 



