"The Swallow is come!
The Swallow is come!
O fair are the seasons, and light
Are the days that she brings,
With her dusky wings,
And her bosom2 snowy white."
A pretty carol, too, is that, which the Hungarian boys, on the islands of the Danube, sing to the returning stork3 in Spring;
"Stork! Stork! poor Stork!
Why is thy foot so bloody4?
A Turkish boy hath torn it;
Hungarian boy will heal it,
With fiddle5, fife, and drum."
But what child has a heart to sing in this capricious clime of ours, where Spring comes sailing in from the sea, with wet and heavy cloud-sails, and the misty6 pennon of the East-wind nailed to the mast! Yet even here, and in the stormy month of March even, there are bright, warm mornings, when we open our windows to inhale7 the balmy air. The pigeons fly to and fro, and we hear the whirring sound of wings. Old flies crawl out of the cracks, to sun themselves; and think it is summer. They die in their conceit8; and so do our hearts within us, when the cold sea-breath comes from the eastern sea; and again,
"The driving hail
Upon the window beats with icy flail9."
The red-flowering maple10 is first in blossom, its beautiful purple flowers unfolding a fortnight before the leaves. The moose-wood follows, with rose-colored buds and leaves; and the dog-wood, robed in the white of its own pure blossoms. Thencomes the sudden rain-storm; and the birds fly to and fro, and shriek11. Where do they hide themselves in such storms? at what firesides dry their feathery cloaks? At the fireside of the great, hospitable12 sun, to-morrow, not before;--they must sit in wet garments until then.
In all climates Spring is beautiful. In the South it is intoxicating
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