LORDS AND LADIES 



^ KNOW a wood where the voice of the wild 

 dove is oftentimes heard, and her plumage 



shines blue against the grey and ash colour 

 of last year's foliage. On the earth beneath 

 this forest of beech and fir, the copper splendour of 

 Autumn has long passed, and save for a cluster of red 

 leaves here and there, clinging in death to the parent 

 bough that knows them no longer, you shall see no- 

 thing but the livid foliage that undergoes destruction. 

 Those active acids that in Autumn's pinching hand 

 awoke such glories of gold and sunset colour along the 

 fringe of the woods — the principles behind that bygone 

 display — are returned to the earth again, and the 

 unnumbered leaves have paid the debt they owed to 

 the giant roots twisted deep down in the darkness. 

 Now their skeletons alone remain. But the world is 

 awake, and the soul of Spring rises in opal mists on the 

 meadows and in the scent of flowers ; her sleepy eyes 

 wake in the blue speedwells, in the purple of violets 

 and the pale light of primroses, where, tucked snugly 

 along the ledges of high banks or sunny hedgerows, 

 they blink at a spring world with innocence as frank and 

 wide-eyed as that of the long-legged, shaky lambs. 



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