APRIL 
When daisies pied and violets blue 
And lady-smocks all silver-white 
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue 
Do paint the meadows with delight. 
Love's Labour's Lost, V. ii. 904. 
ITH April the purple of the violets melts into 
V V the yellow of the primrose, the white of our 
Lady’s smock, and the blue of the woodland scilla. If 
the winds be not chill and the sky palled in gray. 
Nature’s beauties will fast respond to the spattering 
of April showers, and with the carols of the birds 
wake into life. 
The flower of the month is undoubtedly the prim¬ 
rose. One quotation is worth giving : 
Primrose, first-born child of Ver, 
Merry spring-time’s harbinger 
With her bells dim. 
Two Noble Kinsmen, Introd. 
This reminds us of the German name for the flower, 
the Schliissel Blumen (the key flower), the key with 
which our Lady unlocks the treasure-house of spring. 
Three times Shakespeare gives the flower the epithet 
of “ pale,” chiefly in the lines 
Pale primroses, 
That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
JBright Phoebus in his strength. 
Winter's Tale, IV. iv. 122. 
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