Chapter XIV 



|HE earth hath in it the 

 virtue of all herbs." Thus 

 saith an ancient worthy. 

 No doubt he had in mind 

 the quick spring earth, 

 washed clean by peniten- 



tial floods, poignantly alive 



with the livening of the frost. Even the 

 smell of it is vital — especially waterside 

 earth. As you inhale it you cease to marvel 

 at the forwardness of waterside growth. 

 Trees of every sort there are half in leaf 

 when their kin-folk upland are barely bud- 

 ded. As for the low things, shrubby alders 

 and slim honey-dew trees, they stir before 

 the swallow dares even to dream of flight 

 and take earlier than March winds with 

 their beauty. 



The honey-dew tree is hardly a tree at 

 all, seldom gaining a height of fifteen feet. 

 The bark is smoothish and silver-gray, the 



