First came the primrose
On the bank high,
Like a maiden looking forth
From the window of a tower
When the battle rolls below:
So looked she,
And saw the storms go by.
Then came the wind-flower,
In the valley left behind
As a wounded maiden, pale
With purple streaks of woe,
When the battle has roll'd by,
Wanders to and fro:
So totter'd she
Dishevell'd in the wind.
Then came the daisies
On the first of May,
Like a banner'd show's advance,
While the crowd runs by the way,
With ten thousand flowers about them they came trooping through the fields,
As a happy people come,
When the war has roll'd away,
With dance and tabor, pipe and drum,
And all make holiday.
On a Spring day let us go out from London to do honour to the Thames, seeking its nearer delights. Because it is Spring the day is delightful. The English seasons are often disappointing. The summer is not as good, winter not as bad as one has had reason to anticipate. One often at the end of the year has neither revelled in a fine summer nor felt the happiness of heroism in enduring a rigorous winter; for there has been no spell of really fine weather and no rigours. Always the climate has been soft and apologetic. But Spring in England is ever delicious. The first awakening of the year is brimful of stirring delights. Perhaps the summer has been "unsatisfactory," one of these cold, damp summers which drift unaware into autumn; and autumn, though providing a few perfect days, has been generally overcast, and every day has threatened the winter. But the winter has never come at all in any real earnest. No snow, no big freeze for skating, just dull half-cold days with occasional hours as warm as though stolen from autumn. Nature goes to sleep grudgingly, but goes to sleep; taking off all her draperies of green and brown and gold.
Then suddenly one morning you may see the crocus running like a trail of fire through the grass; and around all the shrubs and bushes steals a luminous mist of verdancy which, the more nearly approached, resolves into a starry way of little budding leaves of pale angelic green, so pale and pure that they were surely sprinkled from heaven in the night, and had not been drawn from the gross soil beneath. Yes, Spring is beautiful, and there is the stimulating note in its beauty which is so often lacking in the English landscape. Much of bright serene content, much of reverend grace, much of misty and soft charm with a note of wistfulness, almost of melancholy, England may show through the summer, the autumn, and the winter. On an odd day she will deck herself almost in gaiety, but there is ever a Puritan note of reserve, a hint of grey hairs. In early Spring, however, the country is all young in spirit. One might almost forget decorum and be rash, and whoop out one's joy aloud, coming thus under suspicion of being an uncontrollable Latin sort of person.
THE THAMES AT RICHMOND, SURREY
It is probably in part what has gone before that makes the Spring so glorious. It is a resurrection. With the chill breath of November most of the trees in England prepare to hibernate, shedding their leaves and withdrawing their life within their grim-looking trunks. In the quiet stillness everything snuggles down to rest, and week after week, month after month, you become accustomed to seeing Nature asleep. Then of a sudden a south wind comes bearing the notes of the réveillé, and everything is deliciously athrill, and it is Spring; and as you look upon the feu de joie of the crocuses in the grass, you understand the exultation in Horace's lines about his Spring on the Tiber:—
Solvitur acris hiemps grata vice veris et Favoni,
Trahuntque siccas machinae carinas,
Ac neque iam stabulis gaudet pecus aut arator igni,
Nec prata canis albicant pruinis.