HEAVEN'S HARMONY 11 



the sportive, of Saturn the threatening, together touched 

 with the mischief of volatile Mercury ! 



When March gets into the human circle and stirs up 

 the imagination and the emotions, the association is dis- 

 turbing. The cheerful window garden of fragrant prim- 

 roses fails to awaken gentle reflections; neither Francis 

 Bacon nor Gilbert White nor John Parkinson rises to 

 the wild spirits of March. While "wind and rain and 

 changing skies" play overhead the Gaelic muse and 

 Chopin's preludes make music within doors, where the 

 fire burns brightly on the hearth. 



Such is March variable as the winds that blow, as 

 the gardener knows who learns to be weatherwise. 

 Weather knowledge is a by-product of gardening gleaned 

 on occasions as he watches for the south wind and, dread- 

 ing the north, welcomes the east, and puts by his hose at 

 the sign of a rain-laden cloud. No one scans the skies 

 more anxiously than the gardener in a dry spell ; no one 

 is quicker to spy the sulphurous yellow vapor laden with 

 hail, nor is there a professional weather man more accu- 

 rate in counting the sunny days. 



But, for all this, who knows March*? Some writer on 

 birds and flowers accepts the situation with resignation 

 and would divide the year into four seasons and March. 

 This is as it should be. Let March roar like the lion and 

 be gentle as the lamb, sleet the garden and then thaw it, 

 invite the covers off the beds and send the thermometer 



