Saturday night before Easter
The cool wet fresh smells of the garden, and of all the gardens of the quarter, come in at my wide window. It is almost midnight, the rain has stopped, and it is not cold any more. Sometimes the crows talk together from the top of the trees where their nests are, above the old low roofs my window looks across. There has been for days now, in all the rain and cold, a drift of green about the trees, the fine green mesh of a veil that seems to float, it is so bright and frail, about the black wintry tree-trunks and boughs and branches. The blackbirds came back last week to the garden.
But it is only to-night that one can believe in spring.
In the wet sky, over the roofs and chimneys, and the treetops, there are some stars that hang as big and near as lamps. At dawn perhaps the nightingale will be singing.