Songs Of Spring

As oue after another of the wild flowers come back to greet us, peeping out of the grass or reaohing toward ub froni shrub or spray, we feel as we do wheu denr old friends returu to us after long absence. The flowera are our friends truly ; for everything tliat luis life in it is related to ub in ome way, and bears some message of love to us from Him without whom neither flowers nor human beings would be alive. All truc poets of nature have feit this, and address the flowers as if they were compnnions, neighbors or teachers. Scarcely a more beautiful out-of-door poem of this kind ever has been written than Horaco Smith's "Hymn to the Flowers," from which these verses are taken : Your votedeaa lip, 0 flowcrs! are living preacherB ; Kach cup a pulpit, and oach leaf a book, Supplying to my fancy numorouB teathcrB, From loncliest nook. 'Neftth cloiBt-red boughs earh floral iboD that ewintfeth. And toll ite pcrf unie u the pascing air, Maken Sobbath in the ilrldB, and cvor ringeth A cali to prayer. Tlie songs of spring are none the lesa enjoyable for being old - very old indeed. In Palestine, thousandB of yearB ago, they welcoined her coming just as we do now. A poet-king of that country wrote rejoicingly : "For lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of Uie turtle is heard in our hind." Perhaps the violet has liad more poems written about her tlian any flower except the rose. How can we helpsaying "her" of this lowly, sweet-breathed child of the meadow and road-side ? The air begins to be as sweet as if the breezes of another world were blown through ours when the viólete unfold. This, too, was noticed long ago. Shakspeare speaks of The weet sonth That brfathPS upon a bank of violéis, fttealing and giving odor. And Christina jRossetti writes to-day : O wind, where bave yon been, That you ï]ow o BWCOt? Amoug the violeU Which bloBsom at your fect. uoneysuckle wait For Bummer and for heat ; But violeta in the chilly spring Makc the turf go weet ! Do vou know Willis' "April Viólete?" Here ís part of it. The delicate odor of the flowers seems to steal upon you as you rend : I have foiind violeto. April hth come on, And theeooi winds feel HofU-r, and the rain Falls in the lieaded drops of surnmer-time. You may hear birds at morning, and at eve The tauie dove lingera till the twilight f;illi% Cooing upon the envés, and drawing in His beautif ui, bright neck ; and, from the hillí, A murniur like the hoarseness of the tea Tolla the releaae of waters, and the earth Si-iul.- up a pleasmt aniell, and the dry leavea Are liftcd by the graas ; and o I know That Nature, with her delicate ear, hath heard The dropping of the velvet foot of spring. Take of my violetn ! I found them where The liquid south stole oVr them, on a bank That lean'd to running water. There'B to me A daintinpfs about these early nowo.re, That touches me Hke poetry. They blow With snch a simple loveliness aniong The commcn herbs of pasture, and brrathe out Their livps so unobtrusivftly, like hearte Wïioee watings are too gentle for the world. I love to go in the capricious daye Of April and hunt violet, when the rain Is in the blue cnps trembling, and they nod So gracefully to the ltiaBcs of the wind. Barry Com-wall says this lovely thing about the violet: She comes, the flret, the fairest thing 1"hat heaven upon the earth doth ñinj.. Ere winter'B star hae set ; She dvrells lwhind her leafy screen. And gives hr angola give, nnsnen - The violet. Faster than the flowerscome the birde. As early as the bluebird, honest Robin Eedbrenst and his wife are here, hopping wp and down the garden-walk, turning their hends this way and that, as they j consider their prospecte for ; ing. High in the leafless tree-top - out i of a suow-cloud sometimes - you hear the song-sparrow's heavenly earol, so full of hope and gladness ! the sweetest and one of the inost social of our field minBtrels, he has a ong for all Reasons, and everybody who listens to him is charmed. Tt is a comfort to know that he is going to stay with us through mitlfluinmer, long after most other birds are silent, or have flown away. The songsters gather in throngs, with their gay or tender ballads, eaoh so different from the rest - wren, swallow, linnet, tlirnnh, oriole - and none of them dearer or merrior than the bobolink, the Robert Burns among bird-poets, whose warble follows the track of the plow, and ripples along the edges of the corn-field.