Lilacs in Midsummer in Garden of Mrs. Abraham Lansing, Albany, New York.
It is with something of a shock that we read the words of Philip Hamerton in The Sylvan Year, that nature is not harmonious in the spring, but is only in the way of becoming so. He calls it the time of crudities, like the adolescence of the mind. He says, "The green is good for us, and we welcome it with uncritical gladness; but when we think of painting, it may be doubted whether any season of the year is less propitious to the broad and noble harmonies which are the secrets of all grand effects in art." And he compares the season to the uncomfortable hour in a household when the early risers are walking about, not knowing what to do with themselves, while others have not yet come down to breakfast.
I must confess that an undiversified country landscape in spring has upon me the effect asserted by Hamerton. I recall one early spring week in the Catskills, when I fairly complained, "Everything is so green here." I longed for rocks, water, burnt fields, bare trees, anything to break that glimmering green of new grass and new Birches. But in the spring garden there is variety of shape and color; the Peony leaf buds are red, some sprouting leaves are pink, and there are vast varieties of brown and gray and gold in leaf.
Let me give the procession of spring in the garden in the words of a lover of old New England flowers, Dr. Holmes. It is a vivid word picture of the distinctive forms and colors of budding flowers and leaves.
"At first the snowdrop's bells are seen,
Then close against the sheltering wall
The tulip's horn of dusky green,
The peony's dark unfolding ball.
"The golden-chaliced crocus burns;
The long narcissus blades appear;[Pg 140]
The cone-beaked hyacinth returns
To light her blue-flamed chandelier.
"The willow's whistling lashes, wrung
By the wild winds of gusty March,
With sallow leaflets lightly strung,
Are swaying by the tufted larch.
"See the proud tulip's flaunting cup,
That flames in glory for an hour,—
Behold it withering, then look up—
How meek the forest-monarchs flower!
"When wake the violets, Winter dies;
When sprout the elm buds, Spring is near;
When lilacs blossom, Summer cries,
'Bud, little roses, Spring is here.'"