COUNTRY LIFE
Ens-ma-me this year has let down the poet A. E. Housman badly, deriding his statement that
"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide."
All that 1 saw between Good Friday and Bank Holiday was a long slope of cherry orchard with the trees tossing up their arms in despair under the lashings of a brisk southwester. The grass at their feet is still yellow with tar-burn and sodden with rain. The only spots of lively colour, that offer a symbol of hope, are the glazed petals of the Man- dines in the hedge dividing orchard from cornfield ; and the bright coral- pink of the young lambs' ears when the sun shines fitfully through them while the week-old creatures leap against the light. I know of nothing in nature more completely representative of baby-dom than newborn lambs. Every possible gurgle and sentimental sugar-talk that the adult human can degenerate into is summed up in the spectacle of these wobbling objects with their woolly gaiters and chilly noses, and their absurb caprice of muscle and mind ; if it can be called mind. Just before sunset is the time to watch them at their capers, when they will leap suddenly from a standing posture, uncoiling into the air like watch- springs or miniature bronchos.
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