VI 



EARLIER FLOWERS 



TT is May, when summer first is leafy, when the 

 -■- young oaks are opening with slow reticence 

 their rosy leaflets. When one such oak stands 

 alone in the freshly ploughed field of our region 

 its young foliage is almost lost to sight against 

 the earth, so nearly do the rose-colored leaflets 

 and the pinkish soil come together in color. The 

 vivid greens of elm and beech have a freshness 

 which is almost a moisture, comparable to that 

 freshest of all things, an unfolding butterfly. One 

 week earlier there were blooming the shadbush, 

 the wild plum, those wraiths of the spring wood; 

 and now and again were seen in young leaf, 

 colonies of the white birch f It was a fortunate 

 thought of the scene-painter for Massenet's deli- 

 cious opera of Griseledis, that in the prologue the 

 young shepherd should come piping through a 

 grove of these slender and delicate trees. 



In turning homeward after an absence in May, 

 how one watches the things in bloom, to get a 

 flowery advance bulletin of the condition of one's 



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