APRIL SIGNS. 
O fair midspring, besung so oft and oft, 
How can I praise thy loveliness enow; 
Thy sun that burns not, and thy breezes soft 
That o’er the blossoms of the orchard blow, 
The thousand things that ’neath the young leaves grow, 
The hopes and chances of the growing year, 
Winter forgotten long, and summer near? 
— WILLIAM Morris— The Earthly Paradise. 
The dead leaves in the glade are soft with the warm 
April rain and do not rustle as once they did. Their 
airiness, their readiness to answer to the call of the 
winds is gone; the burden of the winter snow has 
pressed upon them and crowded them down to the dark 
earth of which they are beginning to form a part. But 
beneath them life is awaking, the buds underground as 
well as above are swelling, myriad forms are striving to 
reach up into the light. 
Situated as we are, about half-way between the 
Equator and the North Pole, in one of the most highly 
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