NEWS OF SPRING 



of the springs that flow under the hills, makes the air more 

 translucent, the silence more limpid and is, in very deed, as 

 a forgotten legend tells us, the breath of Earth, all bathed in 

 dew, when, a virgin yet, she wakes in the sun and yields her- 

 self wholly in the first kiss of early dawn. 



Again, in the little gardens that surround the cottages, 

 the bright little houses with their Italian roofs, the good, 

 kindly vegetables, unprejudiced and unpretentious, have never 

 known a doubt, a fear. While the old peasant who has come 

 to resemble the trees he cultivates, digs the earth around the 

 olives, the spinach assumes a lofty bearing, hastens to grow 

 green nor takes the least precaution; the bean opens its eyes 

 of jet in its pale leaves and sees the night fall unmoved; the 

 flighty peas shoot and lengthen out, covered with staid and 

 steadfast butterflies, as though June had entered the farm-gate ; 

 the carrot blushes as it faces the light; the ingenuous straw- 

 berry-plants inhale the aroma which noontide lavishes upon 

 them as it bends to earth its sapphire urns ; the lettuce exerts 

 itself to achieve a heart of gold wherein to lock the dews of 

 morn and eve. 



[138] 



