SUMMER THOUGHTS IN WINTER 



lines of bud along bough ! And then, across the 

 glory of this newest, earliest grass, tight bouquets 

 of color, long, loose garlands of color, crocuses 

 flung down upon the brown earth, rimming the 

 green as with enamel ! Who among contemporary 

 writers can paint the spring with so incomparable 

 a brush as Mrs. Humphry Ward? 'They left 

 the garden and wandered through some rocky 

 fields on the side of the fell, till they came to one 

 where Linnaeus or any other pious soul might 

 well have gone upon his knees for joy. Some 

 loving hand had planted it with daffodils — the 

 wild Lent lily of the district, though not now very 

 plentiful about the actual lakes. And the daffodils 

 had come back rejoicing to their kingdom and 

 made it their own again. They ran in lines and 

 floods, in troops and skirmishers all through the 

 silky grass and round the trunks of the old knotted 

 oaks that hung as though by one foot from the 

 emerging rocks and screes. Above, the bloom of 

 the wild cherries made a wavering screen of silver 

 between the daffodils and the May sky; amid the 

 blossoms the golden-green of the oaks struck a 

 strong, riotous note; and far below, at their feet, 

 the lake lay blue with all the sky within it, and 

 the softness of the larch-woods on its banks.' 



73 



