COUNTRY LIFE
Au. the tags from all the poets of spring will apply to the eve of this Easter, but especially the Roman Redeunt jam gramina campis, if we include that supreme grass (a close cousin of the infamous twitch), the wheat, with oats and barley. It very rarely happens that conditions give the farmer quite so strong an invitation to harrow, to sow and even to plant. Germination of every sort has been quick and early. Seldom were early potatoes put in so early, and very seldom did spring-sown crops show more regular green rulings. A general once said to me on the day before a great battle: "I have nothing more to do but wait." A farmer in this forward season might say almost the same thing. His most essential work is already done. The more aesthetic evidences of spring have doubtless coincided. The " maze of quick " has duly "burgeoned," the blackthorn flowered, the hoods of the cuckoo-pints opened, the chaffinches sung on the apple bough, itself giving plentiful evidence of abundant blossom to come. In the woods the anemones are unusually broad in flower and long in stalk. Our English spring, although the aliquid amari is palpable enough, is as lovely as even Perdita could paint it.
Previous page
