ii8 APRIL 



the general : the purpling elms, the hillsides of gorse, 

 the heather moors, the woods full of primrose and blue 

 bell, the thyme and harebell and bedstraw of the com 

 mons, the singing larks and nightingales, the glory of the 

 flight of swallow or buzzard or dove, the chasse or patrol 

 of Brimstone or Peacock butterfly need suffer no sacrilege 

 from the multiplicity of worshippers . Wordsworth, who 

 had the philosophy of nature worship, hit an essential 

 truth in lines that have become, thanks to the peculiar 

 genius of the English people (as well as of the Lake 

 poet), almost the most hackneyed in the list. He had 

 been looking in spring at the Lent lilies ; but enjoyed 

 them most months later when imprinted on the inward 

 eye that is the bliss of solitude. It was Keats who wrote : 



Yes, in spite of all 



Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 



From our dark spirits. 



We miss a constant pleasure or a pleasure that we may 

 tap at any time if we do not go out to see the several 

 scenes or hear the music in the pageant of the seasons. 

 Some have a charm not widely recognised. In Australia, 

 where the excess of glaucous evergreens makes the con 

 trast especially welcome, everyone delights in the spring 

 foliage of the weeping willows (sprung, it is said, from a 

 slip imported from St. Helena) that hold up the banks 

 of the great rivers. Most of our country people, sharing 

 the task with the bees, pick &quot; palms/ which are the male 

 flowers of a sallow and their gold is not necessarily more 

 beautiful than the silver flowers of the female tree. They 

 take little heed of the willow ; but of all spring sights, 

 is any more memorable, in Wordsworth s sense, than 

 the first budding of the falling shoots of the willows of 

 any species ? My inward eye has registered no tree 



