Spring.
THE old chroniclers made the year begin in the
season of frosts; and they have launched us
upon the current of the months, from the snowy banks
of January. I love better to count time, from spring
to spring; it seems to me far more cheerful, to reckon
the year by blossoms, than by blight.
Bernardin de St. Pierre, in his sweet story of Virginia,
makes the bloom of the cocoa-tree, or the growth
of the banana, a yearly and a loved monitor of the
passage of her life. How cold and cheerless in the
comparison, would be the icy chronology of the North;
—So many years have I seen the lakes locked,
and the foliage die!
The budding and blooming of spring, seem to belong
properly to the opening of the months. It is the
season of the quickest expansion, of the warmest blood,
of the readiest growth; it is the boy-age of the year.
The birds sing in chorus in the spring—just as children
prattle; the brooks run full—like the overflow of
young hearts; the showers drop easily—as young tears
flow; and the whole sky is as capricious as the mind
of a boy.
Between tears and smiles, the year, like the child,
struggles into the warmth of life. The old year,—say
what the chronologists will,—lingers upon the very lap
of spring; and is only fairly gone, when the blossoms
of April have strewn their pall of glory upon his tomb,
and the blue-birds have chanted his requiem.
It always seems to me as if an access of life came
with the melting of the winter's snows; and as if every
rootlet of grass that lifted its first green blade from the
matted debris of the old year's decay, bore my spirit
upon it, nearer to the largess of Heaven.
I love to trace the break of spring step by step: I
love even those long rain-storms that sap the icy fortresses
of the lingering winter,—that melt the snows
upon the hills, and swell the mountain-brooks;—that
make the pools heave up their glassy cerements of
ice, and hurry down the crashing fragments into the
wastes of ocean.
I love the gentle thaws that you can trace, day by
day, by the stained snow-banks, shrinking from the
grass; and by the gentle drip of the cottage-eaves. I
love to search out the sunny slopes by a southern wall,
where the reflected sun does double duty to the earth,
and where the frail anemone, or the faint blush of the
arbutus, in the midst of the bleak March atmosphere,
will touch your heart, like a hope of Heaven, in a field
of graves! Later come those soft, smoky days, when
the patches of winter grain show green under the
shelter of leafless woods, and the last snow-drifts, reduced
to shrunken skeletons of ice, lie upon the slope
of northern hills, leaking away their life.
Then, the grass at your door grows into the color of
the sprouting grain, and the buds upon the lilacs swell,
and burst. The peaches bloom upon the wall, and the
plums wear bodices of white. The sparkling oriole
picks string for his hammock on the sycamore, and the
sparrows twitter in pairs. The old elms throw down
their dingy flowers, and color their spray with green;
and the brooks, where you throw your worm or the
minnow, float down whole fleets of the crimson blossoms
of the maple. Finally, the oaks step into the
opening quadrille of spring, with greyish tufts of a
modest verdure, which, by and by, will be long and
glossy leaves. The dog-wood pitches his broad, white
tent, in the edge of the forest; the dandelions lie
along the hillocks, like stars in a sky of green; and
the wild cherry, growing in all the hedge-rows, without
other culture than God's, lifts up to Him, thankfully,
its tremulous white fingers.
Amid all this, come the rich rains of spring. The
affections of a boy grow up with tears to water them;
and the year blooms with showers. But the clouds
hover over an April sky, timidly—like shadows upon
innocence. The showers come gently, and drop daintily
to the earth,—with now and then a glimpse of sunshine
to make the drops bright—like so many tears of
joy.
The rain of winter is cold, and it comes in bitter
scuds that blind you; but the rain of April steals
upon you coyly, half reluctantly,—yet lovingly—like
the steps of a bride to the Altar.
It does not gather like the storm-clouds of winter,
grey and heavy along the horizon, and creep with
subtle and insensible approaches (like age) to the very
zenith; but there are a score of white-winged swimmers
afloat, that your eye has chased, as you lay
fatigued with the delicious languor of an April sun;—
nor have you scarce noticed that a little bevy of those
floating clouds had grouped together in a sombre
company. But presently, you see across the fields, the
dark grey streaks stretching like lines of mists, from the
green bosom of the valley, to that spot of sky where the
company of clouds is loitering; and with an easy
shifting of the helm, the fleet of swimmers come
drifting over you, and drop their burden into the dancing
pools, and make the flowers glisten, and the eaves
drip with their crystal bounty.
The cattle linger still, cropping the new-come grass;
and childhood laughs joyously at the warm rain;—or
under the cottage roof, catches with eager ear, the patter
of its fall.
—And with that patter on the roof,—so like to
the patter of childish feet—my story of boyish dreams
shall begin.
