94 BIRDS AND POETS 



over the trees, the tinge of green that comes so sud- 

 denly on the sunny knolls and slopes, the full trans- 

 lucent streams, the waxing and warming sun, — how 

 these things and others like them are noted by the 

 eager eye and ear ! •■'' April is my natal month, and I 

 am born again into new delight and new surprises 

 at each return of it. Its name has an indescribable 

 charm to me. Its two syllables are like the calls of 

 the first birds, — like that of the phoabe-bird, or of 

 the meadowlark. Its very snows are fertilizing, 

 and are called the poor man's manure.^/' 



Then its odors ! I am thrilled by its fresh and 

 indescribable odors, — the perfume of the bursting 

 sod, of the quickened roots and rootlets, of the 

 mould under the leaves, of the fresh furrows. No 

 other month has odors like it. The west wind the 

 other day came fraught with a perfume that was to 

 the sense of smell what a wild and delicate strain of 

 music is to the ear. It was almost transcendental. 

 I walked across the hill with my nose in the air 

 taking it in. It lasted for two days. I imagined 

 it came from the willows of a distant swamp, whose 

 catkins were affording the bees their first pollen; 

 or did it come from much farther, — from beyond 

 the horizon, the accumulated breath of innumerable 

 farms and budding forests ? The main characteristic 

 of these April odors is their uncloying freshness. 

 They are not sweet, they are oftener bitter, they 

 are penetrating and lyrical. I know well the odors 

 of May and June, of the world of meadows and 

 orchards bursting into bloom, but they are not so 



