[SIGNS OF SPRING]
The approach of spring is felt, rather than reasoned about. There is that in us which rises to greet the incoming tide of the year before our eyes have apprised us of any change. Winter lies over the world much as ashes are banked on coals for the night, which nevertheless retain their heat and will be found alive and glowing in the morning. In the tropics the fire is not banked and there is no cold dawn with anticipations of the kindly blaze soon to arise, no gradual uncovering of the cheerful coals. Here in New England the dawn is rigorous and spring more welcome. The winter buds are evidence that it is not far away, and it takes but the least encouragement at any time for this latent heat and life to awake and show itself in the high blueberry twigs. Such buoyant faith has the skunk-cabbage it never entirely loses sight of spring, but exerts some spell over its muddy bed, whereby you may see that there, at least, it has already come in November.
The reddening of the twigs is in effect a prelude, and precedes the real spring as dawn precedes daylight, or twilight the night; this is the dawn of the year and these blueberry twigs its first flush. Smilax turns suddenly green as the sap circulates in its spiny stems, and the brown and sear aspect of the earth is relieved and enlivened. This early green is as refreshing to the eye as the first rhubarb to the palate.
One of the earliest signs is the little rosette of bright-colored leaves on the smaller hair-cap mosses, growing in contact with an outcropping ledge. You may see whole patches in the pastures, varying from orange to deep red, a vivid bit of color next the brown earth and looking like diminutive blossoms. Then come the fruiting spikes of the common field horsetails, poking out of some sand-bank. These signs of the awakening season appeal to the trained eye rather than to the casual glance. Such an one detects the slightest swelling of a leaf-bud, the faint reddening of a twig, the deeper green of another. The sap dripping from the freshly cut limb of a birch, or pendent from the wound in a long glittering icicle, is evidence of the quickened circulation of the earth. Among the thick mat of dry leaves you may perhaps find the delicate shoots of wood anemones, and in the swamps the tightly rolled stipes of the osmunda, like little croziers, while there is ice yet in the leaves of the pitcher-plant.
Deep lying in all men is a poetic vein which now appears on the surface. The first pussy-willows and the arrival of bluebirds arouse sentiments as common to us as the love of music: some suggestion of renewal, of awakening after the sleep of winter, which touches even the rough man and makes him kin for a day to the child. We embark each year on the sea of winter, with unquestioning faith that on its other shore spring awaits us, once more to shake the violets from her lap. When, in March, that shore looms in the distance, we feel the joy of travelers in sight of their native land. There may be rough seas, and March winds are blustery, but there in sight, nevertheless, is that faint outline on the horizon.
No blossoming rod of Aaron could appear more miraculous than do the flowering willows. These twigs of brown and lifeless aspect suddenly burst into bloom and array themselves in exquisite silvery gray catkins, while the snow may be still on the ground. Not long after, the alders in the swamp unfold their clusters of drooping aments which have been on the tree stiff and rigid throughout the winter. Thousands of little tails are thus mysteriously hung out on the alder twigs to sway gently in the breeze, turning from a reddish hue to a sulphur-yellow as they expand and become powdered with pollen. Born into a frosty world when the feeble sun is still distant and cold, the March flowers are a link between winter and spring. But Nature has certainly relaxed her features; there is just the ghost of a smile on her icy lips.
This year I heard the bluebird's warble on the 4th of February, but did not see the bird, and heard no more till early in March, when they came in flocks. Out of the sky comes to us this liquid note, as if the heavens had opened and poured upon us their benediction. How sweet it is to the ear, what music to the heart! And when suddenly a little flock starts up from the wall or fence, how rich and welcome to the eye, long denied its modicum of color, is the blue of their backs! We have had little but artificial tastes and colors and perfumes for so long that the senses seize with avidity these first offerings—we are hungry for them.