WHEN ORCHARDS BLOOM 1 7 



makes them hermits of the shade. 

 Branches of amethyst lilacs hang over 

 the gray stone wall, and as they sway 

 to and fro, the bees, laden too deeply 

 with honey, fall drowsily to the ground. 

 Pear and cherry and plum blossomed 

 together this year, and the ground is 

 still powdered with a wealth of their 

 corollas. 



Look through the vista before you, 

 over the fields and up the hillside, 

 where the tree tops meet the sky; there 

 are the blooming apple orchards, 

 foam-white, or rosy as Aurora's finger- 

 tips. Flower, bird, man, what a triad 

 these blossoming orchards typify; for 

 man's dwellings are always near his 

 orchards, and in the orchards are the 

 birds. There they are free and confid- 

 ing, as though they had the instinctive 

 assurance that their greatest safety lies 

 in the protective love of man, against 



c 



