from Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (Samuel Richardson)

When I came near the Place, as I had been devising, I said, Pray, step to the Gardener, and ask him to gather a Sallad for me to Dinner. She called out, Jacob! — Said I, he can’t hear you so far off; and pray tell him, I should like a Cucumber too, if he has one. When she had stept about a Bow-shot from me, I popt down, and whipt my Fingers under the upper Tile, and pulled out a little Letter, without Direction, and thrust it in my Bosom, trembling for Joy. She was with me before I could well secure it; and I was in such a taking, that I feared I should discover myself. You seem frighted, Madam, said she: Why, said I, with a lucky Thought, (alas! your poor Daughter will make an Intriguer by-and-by; but I hope an innocent one!) I stoopt to smell at the Sun-flower, and a great nasty Worm run into the Ground, that startled me; for I don't love Worms. Said she, Sun-flowers don’t smell. So I find, said I. And so we walked in; and Mrs. Jewkes said, Well, you have made haste in — You shall go another time.

from Clover, chapter VII, Making Acquaintance (Susan Coolidge)

The sun was very hot; but there was a delicious breeze, and the dryness and elasticity of the air made the heat easy to bear.

The way lay across and down the southern slope of the plateau on which the town was built. Then they came to splendid fields of grain and 'afalfa, - a cereal quite new to them, with broad, very green leaves. The roadside was gay with flowers, - gillias and mountain balm; high pink and purple spikes, like foxgloves, which they were told were pentstemons; painters' brush, whose green tips seemed dipped in liquid vermilion, and masses of the splendid wild poppies. They crossed a foaming little river; and a sharp turn brought them into a narrower and wilder road, which ran straight toward the mountain side. This was overhung by trees, whose shade was grateful after the hot sun.

Narrower and narrower grew the road, more and more sharp the turns. They were at the entrance of a deep defile, up which the road wound and wound, following the links of the river, which they crossed and recrossed repeatedly. Such a wonderful and perfect little river, with water clear as air and cold as ice, flowing over a bed of smooth granite, here slipping noiselessly down long slopes of rock like thin films of glass, there deepening into pools of translucent blue-green like aqua-marine or beryl, again plunging down in mimic waterfalls, a sheet of iridescent foam. The sound of its rush and its ripple was like a laugh. Never was such happy water, Clover thought, as it curved and bent and swayed this way and that on its downward course as if moved by some merry, capricious instinct, like a child dancing as it goes. Regiments or great ferns grew along its banks, and immense thickets of wild roses of all shades, from deep Jacqueminot red to pale blush-white. Here and there rose a lonely spike of yucca, and in the little ravines to right and left grew in the crevices of the rocks clumps of superb straw-colored columbines four feet high.

Looking up, Clover saw above the tree-tops strange pinnacles and spires and obelisks which seemed air-hung, of purple-red and orange-tawny and pale pinkish gray and terra cotta, in which the sunshine and the cloud-shadows broke in a multiplicity of wonderful half-tints. Above them was the dazzling blue of the Colorado sky. She drew a long, long breath.

'So this is a canyon,' she said. 'How glad I am that I have lived to see one.'

from High Rising (Angela Thirkell)

When the party got to Low Rising, they found George Knox at work in the garden.  George, whose dramatic sense was not one of the least factors in the success of his biographies, liked to dress his part, and at the moment was actively featuring Popular Writer Enjoys Hard Work in Garden of his Sixteenth-Century Manor House.  He had perhaps a little overdone the idea, being dressed in bright brown plus-fours, a gigantic pair of what looked like decayed football boots, a very dirty and worn high-necked sweater, and a tweed shooting coast with its buttons and pockets flapping.  Large as George Knox was at any time, this wilful collection of odd clothes made him loom incredibly.  From his seven-league boots the eye travelled upwards to the vast width of his plus-fours, to the huge girth of thick jacket over thick sweater, only to find, with a start of surprise, that his large face, with its knobbly forehead and domed and rather bald scalp, completely dwarfed the rest of him.  He had decided to devote that afternoon to heavy digging, and was excavating, unscientifically and laboriously, a piece of the kitchen garden.  The sky was coldly pink in the west where the winter sun was setting behind mists, George Knox's bare-branched trees made a delicate pattern against the sunset flush, George Knox's smoke from the chimneys of his Lovely Sixteenth-Century Manor House was going straight up into the air, a light or two shone golden in George Knox's windows, his feet were clogged with damp earth, his hands were very dirty, and a robin was watching him dig.

'It couldn't have been better arranged, George,' said Laura as she approached.  'Perfect setting for author, down to the robin.  I shall have to write a book about the lovely vendeuse who marries the strong, noble son of the soil, and use you as a model.'

On hearing this, the robin flew away.

George Knox stuck his spade into the earth, straightened up painfully, in the manner of one who has been devoted to life-long toil in the agricultural line, and mopped his brow with a large red handkerchief with white spots.

'That's the worst of the country,' he remarked.  'Lady authors coming round unasked, frightening away one's little feathered friends.  Who frightened Cock Robin?  I, said the Laura, with my feminine aura.  Laura, dear, I cannot offer you my hand as it is all earth, but you are as welcome as ever.'

'This is Mr Knox, Amy,' said Laura, exhibiting George to her friends with some pride.  'And this, George, if you will stop rubbing mould into your eyes with that preposterous handkerchief, is Mrs Birkett, whose husband keeps Dotheboys Hall and breaks Tony's spirit.'

'If I am to take your statement as one and indivisible, Laura, it is a lie, because no power on earth, nor indeed any demons under the sea, could ever dissever Tony from his profound self-satisfaction.  But if I may separate your sentence into its component parts, I am more than willing to believe that this is Mrs Birkett, whose acquaintance I am honoured and delighted to make, and who, or whom, I look forward to shaking hands with when I have cleaned up a bit.'

'I'm so glad you get mixed about that "who", George.  It is the death of me.  That, and commas, are the bane of my life.  The only way one can really express what one wants to say is by underlining every other word four times, like Queen Victoria, and that appears to be bad taste now.  What are you digging, George?'

'Earth?'

'Yes, but I mean what?  Potatoes, or bulbs, or asparagus beds?' asked Laura, who cared little about gardening and knew less.

George Knox looked guiltily round.

'The gardener has gone over to Stoke Dry to fetch a parcel from the station, so I thought I would dig for exercise while his back was turned.  He doesn't like me in his garden when he is here.  I dug up a lot of things that smelled like onions.  Come into the house and we'll find Sibyl.'

'Probably it was onions,' said Laura, as they went into the sitting-room, 'or else leeks.  You can send me some on St David's Day, and I'll wear them in my bonnet.'

'Are you Welsh, then?' asked Amy Birkett.

'Oh, no, but its's nice to wear things on the right day.  Only the right day - yes, Tony, take Sylvia and go and find Sibyl, only keep Sylvia on the lead in case Sibyl's dogs jump at her.'

'Oh, Mother, Sibyl's dogs wouldn't jump at Sylvia.  Dogs always know a friendly dog, Mother.  They are marvellous.  It's a kind of instinct.  Mrs Birkett, did you know about instinct?  Mr Ferris told us about it in maths, one day.'

'But why in maths, Tony?  Is instinct a kind of algebra?'

'No, no, but Mr Ferris is very sensible and tells us all sorts of things in the maths period.  His father used to be a doctor in the country, and when the sheep were all buried in snow in the winter, the dogs had an instinct to find them and they leaped on their backs and licked the snow off them.'

'But where does Mr Ferris's father come in?' asked George Knox, slightly bewildered.

'He doesn't come in, sir, it was the dogs,' said Tony pityingly.  'They have a marvellous instinct -'

His mother gently pushed him and Sylvia out of the room, and returned to her seat, remarking placidly:

'As I was saying,  and I am going to say it, because it is too interesting to lose, the right day and the right flower never seem to come together.  One can't possibly expect roses to be out on St George's Day, at least not if St George's Day comes on the twenty-third of April.  Unless, of course, in Shakespeare's time April was much later on account of Old Style, or people had hothouses, which we never hear of.'

'Where does Shakespeare come in?' asked Amy, as bewildered by the introduction of the bard as George had previously been by Mr Ferris's father.

'Well, Shakespeare's birthday was St George's Day, so it all somehow goes together.  And as for St Patrick's Day, shamrock may be in season then, I don't know, not in Ulster, I suppose, but anyway in the Irish Free State, but one can't tell, because what they sell in the streets looks like compressed mustard and cress.  Luckily one doesn't have to wear thistles for St Andrew, and as for St David -'

But here George Knox, who had been simmering with a desire to talk for some time past, took the floor, drowing Laura's gentle voice entirely.

'St David, dear Mrs Birkett,' he began, 'had no nonsense about him, and knew that a leek was about all his countrymen were fit for.  I do not offend you, I trust, in saying this.  I would quarrel with no one for being Welsh, as I, thank God, am French and Irish by descent, and am far removed from petty racial feelings, but for a nation who are, or who is - damn those pronouns, Laura - time-serving, sycophantic, art nouveau, horticultural and despicable enough to try to change the leek to a daffodil, words fail me to express my contempt.  You were alluding just now to Shakespeare's birthday, my dear Laura.  What would Shakespeare have thought if Burbage had proposed to substitute a daffodil for a leek in Henry the Fifth?  Where, Mrs Birkett, would be Fluellen and Pistol?  The whole point of that scene would be lost - lost, I say,' he repeated, glaring affectionately at Sibyl who came in with Tony.  'As well might you have substituted the leek for the daffodil in the Winter's Tale.  Imagine Shakespeare writing that leeks come before the swallow comes - except, of course, when you are eating them - or take the winds of March; for though doubtless they may by the calendar, though on that point I profess no special knowledge, poetically it is impossible.  No, dear ladies, the Welsh are utterly and eternally damned for this denial, worse than whoever's it was in Dante, of their national emblem.'

--

Saturday morning dawned fair and bright.  The sun shone, the cuckoo bellowed from a copse hard by, other birds less easy to recognise made suitable bird noises.  In the little wood primroses grew in vulgar profusion, a drift of blue mist showed that bluebells were on the way, glades were still white with wind-flowers.  All the trees that come out early were brilliant green, while those that come out later were, not unnaturally, still brown, thus forming an agreeable contrast.  A stream bordered with kingcups made a gentle bubbling noise like sausages in a frying-pan.  Nature, in fact, was as it; and when she chooses, Nature can do it.

Thoughts in a Garden (Andrew Marvell)

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their incessant labours see
Crown’d from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergéd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of Repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence thy sister dear?
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men:
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow:
Society is all but rude
To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress’ name:
Little, alas, they know or heed
How far these beauties her exceed!
Fair trees! where’er your barks I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion’s heat
Love hither makes his best retreat:
The gods, who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race:
Apollo hunted Daphne so
Only that she might laurel grow:
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less
Withdraws into its happiness;
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree’s mossy root,
Casting the body’s vest aside
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy Garden-state,
While man there walk’d without a mate:
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises are in one,
To live in Paradise alone.

How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new!
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
And, as it works, th’ industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckon’d, but with herbs and flowers!

In Memoriam A.H.H. LXXXIII (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Dip down upon the northern shore,
  O sweet new-year delaying long;
  Thou dost expectant nature wrong;
Delaying long, delay no more.

What stays thee from the clouded noons,
   Thy sweetness from its proper place?
   Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons?

Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire,
   The little speedwell's darling blue,
   Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.

O thou, new-year, delaying long,
   Delayest the sorrow in my blood,
   That longs to burst a frozen bud
And flood a fresher throat with song.

Hymnus ad incensum lucernae [Cathemerinon 5] (Prudentius)

Inventor rutili, dux bone, luminis
qui certis vicibus tempora dividis,
merso sole chaos ingruit horridum,
lucem redde tuis Christe fidelibus.

Quamvis innumero sidere regiam
lunarique polum lampade pinxeris,
incussu silicis lumina nos tamen
monstras saxigeno semine quaerere:

Ne nesciret homo spem sibi luminis
in Christi solido corpore conditam,
qui dici stabilem se voluit petram,
nostris igniculis unde genus venit.

Pinguis quos olei rore madentibus
lychnis aut facibus pascimus aridis:
quin et fila favis scirpea floreis
presso melle prius conlita fingimus.

Vivax flamma viget, seu cava testula
sucum linteolo suggerit ebrio,
seu pinus piceam fert alimoniam,
seu ceram teretem stuppa calens bibit.

Nectar de liquido vertice fervidum
guttatim lacrimis stillat olentibus,
ambustum quoniam vis facit ignea
imbrem de madido flere cacumine.

Splendent ergo tuis muneribus, Pater,
flammis mobilibus scilicet atria,
absentemque diem lux agit aemula,
quam nox cum lacero victa fugit peplo.

Sed quis non rapidi luminis arduam
manantemque Deo cernat originem?
Moyses nempe Deum spinifera in rubo
vidit conspicuo lumine flammeum.

Felix, qui meruit sentibus in sacris
caelestis solii visere principem,
iussus nexa pedum vincula solvere,
ne sanctum involucris pollueret locum.

Hunc ignem populus sanguinis incliti
maiorum meritis tutus et inpotens,
suetus sub dominis vivere barbaris,
iam liber sequitur longa per avia:

qua gressum tulerant castraque caerulae
noctis per medium concita moverant,
plebem pervigilem fulgure praevio
ducebat radius sole micantior.

Sed rex Niliaci littoris invido
fervens felle iubet praevalidam manum
in bellum rapidis ire cohortibus
ferratasque acies clangere classicum.

Sumunt arma viri seque minacibus
accingunt gladiis, triste canit tuba:
hic fidit iaculis, ille volantia
praefigit calamis spicula Gnosiis.

Densetur cuneis turba pedestribus,
currus pars et equos et volucres rotas
conscendunt celeres signaque bellica
praetendunt tumidis clara draconibus.

Hic iam servitii nescia pristini
gens Pelusiacis usta vaporibus
tandem purpurei gurgitis hospita
rubris littoribus fessa resederat.

Hostis dirus adest cum duce perfido,
infert et validis praelia viribus:
Moyses porro suos in mare praecipit
constans intrepidis tendere gressibus:

praebent rupta locum stagna viantibus
riparum in faciem pervia, sistitur
circumstans vitreis unda liquoribus,
dum plebs sub bifido permeat aequore.

Pubes quin etiam decolor asperis
inritata odiis rege sub inpio
Hebraeum sitiens fundere sanguinem
audet se pelago credere concavo:

ibant praecipiti turbine percita
fluctus per medios agmina regia,
sed confusa dehinc unda revolvitur
in semet revolans gurgite confluo.

Currus tunc et equos telaque naufraga
ipsos et proceres et vaga corpora
nigrorum videas nare satellitum,
arcis iustitium triste tyrannicae.

Quae tandem poterit lingua retexere
laudes Christe tuas? qui domitam Pharon
plagis multimodis cedere praesuli
cogis iustitiae vindice dextera.

Qui pontum rapidis aestibus invium
persultare vetas, ut refluo in salo
securus pateat te duce transitus,
et mox unda rapax devoret inpios.

Cui ieiuna eremi saxa loquacibus
exundant scatebris, et latices novos
fundit scissa silex, quae sitientibus
dat potum populis axe sub igneo.

Instar fellis aqua tristifico in lacu
fit ligni venia mel velut Atticum:
lignum est, quo sapiunt aspera dulcius;
quam praefixa cruci spes hominum viget.

Inplet castra cibus tunc quoque ninguidus,
inlabens gelida grandine densius:
his mensas epulis, hac dape construunt,
quam dat sidereo Christus ab aethere.

Nec non imbrifero ventus anhelitu
crassa nube leves invehit alites,
quae conflata in humum, cum semel agmina
fluxerunt, reduci non revolant fuga.

Haec olim patribus praemia contulit
insignis pietas numinis unici,
cuius subsidio nos quoque vescimur
pascentes dapibus pectora mysticis.

Fessos ille vocat per freta seculi
discissis populum turbinibus regens
iactatasque animas mille laboribus
iustorum in patriam scandere praecipit.

Illic purpureis tecta rosariis
omnis fragrat humus calthaque pinguia
et molles violas et tenues crocos
fundit fonticulis uda fugacibus.

Illic et gracili balsama surculo
desudata fluunt, raraque cinnama
spirant et folium, fonte quod abdito
praelambens fluvius portat in exitum.

Felices animae prata per herbida
concentu parili suave sonantibus
hymnorum modulis dulce canunt melos,
calcant et pedibus lilia candidis.

Sunt et spiritibus saepe nocentibus
paenarum celebres sub Styge feriae
illa nocte, sacer qua rediit Deus stagnis
ad superos ex Acheronticis.

Non sicut tenebras de face fulgida
surgens oceano Lucifer inbuit,
sed terris Domini de cruce tristibus
maior sole novum restituens diem.

Marcent suppliciis tartara mitibus,
exultatque sui carceris otio
functorum populus liber ab ignibus,
nec fervent solito flumina sulphure.

Nos festis trahimus per pia gaudia
noctem conciliis votaque prospera
certatim vigili congerimus prece
extructoque agimus liba sacrario.

Pendent mobilibus lumina funibus,
quae suffixa micant per laquearia,
et de languidulis fota natatibus
lucem perspicuo flamma iacit vitro.

Credas stelligeram desuper aream
ornatam geminis stare trionibus,
et qua bosporeum temo regit iugum,
passim purpureos spargier hesperos.

O res digna, Pater, quam tibi roscidae
noctis principio grex tuus offerat,
lucem, qua tribuis nil pretiosius,
lucem, qua reliqua praemia cernimus.

Tu lux vera oculis, lux quoque sensibus,
intus tu speculum, tu speculum foris,
lumen, quod famulans offero, suscipe,
tinctum pacifici chrismatis unguine.

Per Christum genitum, summe Pater, tuum,
in quo visibilis stat tibi gloria,
qui noster Dominus, qui tuus unicus
spirat de patrio corde paraclitum.

Per quem splendor, honos, laus, sapientia,
maiestas, bonitas, et pietas tua
regnum continuat numine triplici
texens perpetuis secula seculis.

Vertue (George Herbert)

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridall of the earth and skie:
The dew shall weep thy fall to night;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:
Thy root is ever in its grave
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet dayes and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My musick shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Onely a sweet and vertuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

Adlestrop (Edward Thomas)

Yes. I remember Adlestrop —
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop — only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Freshen the Flowers, She Said (Mary Oliver)

So I put them in the sink, for the cool porcelain
was tender,
and took out the tattered and cut each stem
on a slant,
trimmed the black and raggy leaves, and set them all -
roses, delphiniums, daisies, iris, lilies,
and more whose names I don't know, in bright new water -
gave them

a bounce upward at the end to let them take
their own choice of position, the wheels, the spurs,
the little sheds of the buds. It took, to do this,
perhaps fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of music
with nothing playing.

'Loveliest of trees' (A.E. Housman)

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

from Easter (George Herbert)

I got me flowers to strew thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought'st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sun arising in the East,
Though he give light, and th' East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many suns to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we miss:
There is but one, and that one ever.

from Phaedrus, 229a-c, 230a-d (Plato, trans. Robin Waterfield)

SOCRATES: Let's turn off the road here and walk alongside the Ilissus. Then we can find somewhere quiet to sit down, wherever we like.
PHAEDRUS: It turns out to be a good thing that I have no shoes on. You never do, of course. It will be very easy for us to wet our feet as we walk by the stream, which will be nice, especially at this time of day in this season.
SOCRATES: Lead the way, then, and at the same time think about where we might sit.
PHAEDRUS: Do you see that very tall plane tree?
SOCRATES: Of course.
PHAEDRUS: It's shady and breezy there, and there's grass for sitting on, or lying on if we like.
SOCRATES: Lead the way, please.
PHAEDRUS: Tell me, Socrates, isn't this or hereabouts the place from where Boreas is said to have abducted Oreithuia from the Ilissus?
SOCRATES: Yes, that's how the story goes, anyway.
PHAEDRUS: Well, wasn't it from here? At any rate, the water has a pleasant, clean, clear appearance - just right for girls to play beside.
SOCRATES: No, this isn't the place. It's about two or three stades downstream, where one crosses to go towards Agra. There's an altar of Boreas somewhere there.
PHAEDRUS: I've not really noticed it. But tell me, Socrates, by Zeus: do you think this story is true?
SOCRATES: It wouldn't be odd for me to doubt it as the experts do. I might give a clever explanation of it [...] But anyway, my friend, if I may interrupt our conversation, isn't this the tree you were taking us to?
PHAEDRUS: Yes, this is the one.
SOCRATES: By Hera, what a lovely secluded spot! This plane tree is very tall and flourishing, the agnus is tall enough to provide excellent shade too, and since it is in full bloom it will probably make the place especially fragrant. Then again, the stream flowing under the plane tree is particularly charming, and its water is very cold, to judge by my foot. The place seems by the statuettes and figures to be sacred to certain of the Nymphs and to Achelous. Or again, if you like, how pleasant and utterly delightful is the freshness of the air here! The whisper of the breeze chimes in a summery, clear way with the chorus of the cicadas. But the nicest thing of all is the fact that the grass is on a gentle slope which is perfect for resting one's head on when lying down. You are indeed a very good guide, my dear Phaedrus.
PHAEDRUS: You're quite remarkable, Socrates! You're like a complete stranger - literally, as you say, as if you were a visitor being shown around, not a local resident. It's proof of how you never leave town either to travel abroad or even, I think, to step outside the city walls at all.

from Guy and Pauline, part III, Spring: May (Compton Mackenzie)

It was after dawn when Guy woke, for he had fallen asleep very tired after his week on the river; still it was scarcely six when he came down into the orchard, and the birds were singing as Guy thought he had never heard them sing before. The apple-trees were already frilled with a foam of blossom; and on quivering boughs linnets with breasts rose-burnt by the winds of March throbbed our their carol. Chaffinches with flashing prelude of silver wings flourished a burst of song that broke as with too intolerable a triumph: then sought another tree and poured forth the triumphant song again. Thrushes, blackbirds and warblers quired deep-throated melodies against the multitudinous trebles of those undistinguished myriads that with choric paean saluted May; and on sudden diminuendoes could be heard the rustling canzonets of the goldfinches, rising and falling with reedy cadences.

May-Day Song for North Oxford [Annie Laurie Tune] (John Betjeman)

Belbroughton Road is bonny, and pinkly bursts the spray
Of prunus and forsythia across the public way,
For a full spring-tide of blossom seethed and departed hence,
Leaving land-locked pools of jonquils by sunny garden fence.

And a constant sound of flushing runneth from windows where
The toothbrush too is airing in this new North Oxford air
From Summerfields to Lynam's, the thirsty tarmac dries,
And a Cherwell mist dissolveth on elm-discovering skies.

Oh! well-bound Wells and Bridges! Oh! earnest ethical search
For the wide high-table logos of St. C.S. Lewis's Church.
This diamond-eyed Spring morning my soul soars up the slope
Of a right good rough-cast buttress on the housewall of my hope.

And open-necked and freckled, where once there grazed the cows,
Emancipated children swing on old apple boughs,
And pastel-shaded book rooms bring New Ideas to birth
As the whitening hawthorn only hears the heart beat of the earth.

Home Thoughts from Abroad (Robert Browning)

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
- Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

in time of daffodils(who know (e.e. cummings)

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me