210 THE OPEN AIR. 



too, the sharp needles of the green corn ; let the wind 

 clear it of snow a little way, and show that under cold 

 clod and colder snow the green thing pushes up, 

 knowing that summer must come. Nothing despairs 

 but man. Set the sharp curve of the white new moon 

 in the sky : she is white in true frost, and yellow a 

 little if it is devising change. Set the new moon as 

 something that symbols an increase. Set the shep- 

 herd's crook in a corner as a token that the flocks are 

 already enlarged in number. The shepherd is the 

 symbolic man of the hardest winter time. His work 

 is never more important than then. Those that only 

 roam the fields when they are pleasant in May, see 

 the lambs at play in the meadow, and naturally think 

 of lambs and May flowers. But the lamb was born in 

 the adversity of snow. Or you might set the morning 

 star, for it burns and burns and glitters in the winter 

 dawn, and throws forth beams like those of metal 

 consumed in oxygen. There is nought that I know 

 by comparison with which I might indicate the glory 

 of the morning star, while yet the dark night hides in 

 the hollows. The lamb is born in the fold. The 

 morning star glitters in the sky. The bud is alive in 

 its sheath ; the green corn under the snow ; the lark 

 twitters as he passes. Now these to me are the 

 allegory of winter. 



These mild hours in February check the hold which 

 winter has been gaining, and as it were, tear his claws 

 out of the earth, their prey. If it has not been so 

 bitter previously, when this Gulf stream or current of 

 warmer air enters the expanse it may bring forth a 

 butterfly and tenderly woo the first violet into flower. 



