t part of spring which
escapes a direct and matter-of-fact description of her. There is more
of spring in a line or two of Chaucer and Spenser than in the elaborate
portraits of her by Thomson or Pope, because the former had spring
in their hearts, and the latter only in their inkhorns. Nearly all
Shakespeare's songs are spring songs,--full of the banter, the frolic,
and the love-making of the early season. What an unloosed current, too,
of joy and fresh new life and appetite in Burns!

In spring everything has such a margin! there are such spaces of
silence! The influences are at work underground. Our delight is in a few
things. The drying road is enough; a single wild flower, the note of
the first bird, the partridge drumming in the April woods, the restless
herds, the sheep steering for the uplands, the cow lowing in the highway
or hiding her calf in the bushes, the first fires, the smoke going up
through the shining atmosphere, from the burning of rubbish in gardens
and old fields,--each of these simple things fills the breast with
yearning and delight, for they are tokens of the spring. The best spring
poems have this singleness and sparseness. Listen to Solomon: "For lo,
the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the
earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the
turtle is heard in the land." In Wordsworth are some things that breathe
the air of spring. These lines, written in early spring, afford a good
specimen:--

"I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind."

"To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

"Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 't is my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

"The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure."

Or these from another poem, written in his usual study, "Out-of-Doors,"
and addressed to his sister:--

"It is the first mild day of March,
Each minute sweeter than before;
The redbreast sings from the tall l