But what I particularly object to in March is its winds. They say
“March winds and April showers
Bring forth May flowers.”
But I doubt the fact. They may call them forth, perhaps,—whistling over the roofs of their subterraneous dwellings, to let them know that Winter is past and gone. Or, in our disposition to “turn diseases to commodities,” let us regard them as the expectant damsel does the sound of the mail coach horn that whisks through the village, as she lies in bed at midnight, and tells her that to-morrow she may look for a letter from her absent swain.
The only other express and specific reason why I object to March, is that she drives hares mad; which is a great fault. But be all this as it may, she is still fraught with merits; and let us proceed, without more ado, to point out a few of them. And first of the country;—to which, by the way, I have not hitherto allowed its due supremacy—for
“God made the Country, but man made the Town.”
Now, then, even the winds of March, notwithstanding all that we have insinuated in their disfavour, are far from being virtueless; for they come careering over our fields, and roads, and pathways, and while they dry up the damps that the thaws had let loose, and the previous frosts had prevented from sinking into the earth, “pipe to the spirit ditties” the words of which tell tales of the forthcoming flowers. And not only so, but occasionally they are caught bearing away upon their rough wings the mingled odours of violet and daffodil, both of which have already ventured to
“Come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.”
The general face of nature has not much changed in appearance since we left it in February; though its internal economy has made an important step in advance. The sap is alive in the seemingly sleeping trunks that every where surround us, and is beginning to mount slowly to its destination; and the embryo blooms are almost visibly struggling towards light and life, beneath their rough, unpromising outer coats—unpromising to the idle, the unthinking, and the inobservant; but to the eye that “can see Othello’s visage in his mind,” bright and beautiful, in virtue of the brightness and the beauty that they cover, but not conceal. Now, too, the dark earth becomes soft and tractable, and yields to the kindly constraint that calls upon it to teem with new life,—crumbling to the touch, that it may the better clasp in its fragrant bosom the rudiments of that gay, but ephemeral creation which are born with the spring, only “to run their race rejoicing” into the lap of summer, and there yield up their sweet breath, a willing incense at the shrine of that nature the spirit of which is endless constancy growing out of endless change. Must I tell the reader this in plainer prose?—Now, then, is the time to sow the seeds of most of the annual flowering plants; particularly of those which we all know and love—such as Sweet Pea, the most feminine of flowers, that must have a kind hand to tend its youth, and a supporting arm to cling to in its maturity, or it grovels in the dust, and straggles away into an unsightly weed; and Mignionette, with a name as sweet as its breath,—that loves “within a gentle bosom to be laid,” and makes haste to die there, lest its white lodging should be changed; and Larkspur, trim, gay, and bold, the gallant of the garden; and Lupines, blue, and yellow, and rose coloured, with their winged flowers hovering above their starry leaves; and a host of others, that we must try to characterise as they come in turn before us.
Now, too, we have some of the bulbous rooted flowers at their best, particularly the pretty Crocuses, yellow, blue, striped, and white; while others, the Narcissus, Hyacinths, and Tulips, are visibly hastening towards their perfection.
Those spring flowers, too, which ventured to show themselves last month before they had well recovered from their winter trance, have now grown bold in their renewed strength, and look the winds in the face fearlessly. Perhaps the most poetical of these, because the most pathetic in their pale and pining beauty, are the Primroses. Their bold and bright-eyed relatives the Polyanthuses (no two alike) are also now all on the look out for lovers, among the bees that the warm sunny mornings already begin to call forth.