THE LAP OF PROSERPINE 119 



tion and expectance. And Nature, under each green 

 leaf and out of the death of last year, prepares the 

 supply for the coming demand, spreads the banquet 

 of countless insects for the tiny throats that will soon 

 gape in her nurseries. Also I know how the fat 

 infant thrush must go to the weasel's maw that she 

 may the better suckle her young ; how certain of 

 the blackbird's fledglings will make no music, but 

 serve to gladden the young jays. Many a squeaking, 

 new-born rabbit, sniffing his first wild thyme, will also 

 be snatched out of all the joys of his little life that the 

 crow's brood may flourish, or the young of the hawk 

 prosper. The spirit of life forgets none of the infinite 

 infantile family : 



" It spreadeth forth for flight the eagle's wings 



What time she beareth home her prey ; it sends 

 The she-wolf to her cubs ; for unloved things 

 It findeth food and friends." 



Never was a platitude put more pleasantly. 



Of plants, the umbel-bearers are busy with foliage, 

 here delicate, here rampant and coarse, here fine and 

 ferny, as in the chervils, or stone-parsley, or hedge- 

 parsleys ; here distinctive, as in the sanicle, or the 

 lady's-mantle ; here massive and even gigantic, as in 

 the cow-parsnip and alexanders, or moisture-loving 

 angelica and water-dropwort. Speedwells are blossom- 

 ing sky-blue and azure-veined, and the perfect chalice 

 of the wood-sorrel — like sparkling snow laced with a 

 network of amethyst — hangs and trembles at its own 



