Explanatory. 



ranks of her forests ; no pale, defiled, or furious 

 rivers rend their rude and changeful ways among 

 her rocks. Patiently, eddy by eddy, the clear 

 green streams wind along their well - known 

 beds ; and under the dark quietness of the 

 undisturbed pines there spring up, year by year, 

 such company of joyful flowers as I know not the 

 like of among all the blessings of the earth. It was 

 spring-time, too ; and all were coming forth in 

 clusters crowded for very love. There was room 

 enough for all, but they crushed their leaves into all 

 manner of strange shapes, only to be nearer each 

 other. There was the Wood Anemone, star after 

 star, closing every now and then into nebulae ; and 

 there was the Oxalis, troop by troop, like virginal 

 processions of the Mois de Marie, the dark vertical 

 clefts in the limestone choked up with them as with 

 heavy snow, and touched with Ivy on the edges — 

 Ivy as light and lovely as the Vine ; and, ever and 

 anon, a blue gush of Violets and Cowslip bells in 

 sunny places ; and in the more open ground, the 

 Vetch, and Comfrey, and Mezereon, and the small 

 sapphire buds of the alpine Polygala, and the Wild 

 Strawberry, just a blossom or two, all showered 

 amidst the golden softness of deep, warm, amber- 

 coloured moss." 



