SPRING. 
335 
“plump 5 ’ of ducks rose at tlie same time and took 
the route to the north in the wake of their noisier 
cousins. 
For a week I heard the circling groping clangor of 
some solitary goose in the foggy mornings, seeking its 
companion, and still peopling the woods with the sound 
of a larger life than they could sustain. In April the 
pigeons were seen again flying express in small flocks, 
and in due time I heard the martins twittering over my 
clearing, though it had not seemed that the township 
contained so many that it could afford me any, and I 
fancied that they were peculiarly of the ancient race 
that dwelt in hollow trees ere white men came. In al¬ 
most all climes the tortoise and the frog are among the 
precursors and heralds of this season, and birds fly with 
song and glancing plumage, and plants spring and bloom, 
and winds blow, to correct this slight oscillation of the 
poles and preserve the equilibrium of Nature. 
As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the 
coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of 
Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age. — 
“ Eurus ad Auroram, Nabathacaque regna recessit, 
Persidaque, et radiis juga subdita matutinis.” 
“ The East-Wind withdrew to Aurora and the Nabathsean kingdom, 
And the Persian, and the ridges placed under the morning rays. 
$ 
Man was born. Whether that Artificer of things, 
The origin of a better world, made him from the divine seed; 
Or the earth being recent and lately sundered from the high 
Ether, retained some seeds of cognate heaven.’* 
A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades 
greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of 
