eliciously exhilarating
effect on those who breathe so pure an atmosphere. The winds of March
differ, indeed, in a remarkable manner from, the gales of the early year,
which, even when they blow from a mild quarter, compel one to keep in
constant movement because of the aqueous vapour they carry. But the true
March wind, though too boisterous to be exactly genial, causes a joyous
sense of freshness, as if the very blood in the veins were refined and
quickened upon inhaling it. There is a difference in its roar--the note is
distinct from the harsh sound of the chilly winter blast. On the lonely
highway at night, when other noises are silent, the March breeze rushes
through the tall elms in a wild cadence. The white clouds hasten over,
illuminated from behind by a moon approaching the full; every now and then
a break shows a clear blue sky and a star shining. Now a loud roar
resounds along the hedgerow like the deafening boom of the surge; it
moderates, dies away, then an elm close by bends and sounds as the blast
comes again. In another moment the note is caught up and repeated by a
distant tree, and so one after another joins the song till the chorus
reaches its highest pitch. Then it sinks again, and so continues with
pauses and deep inspirations, for March is like a strong man drawing his
breath full and long as he starts to run a race.

The sky, too, like the earth, whose hedges, trees, and meadows are
acquiring fresher colours, has now a more lovely aspect. At noon-day, if
the clouds be absent, it is a rich azure; after sunset a ruddy glow
appears almost all round the horizon, while the thrushes sing in the wood
till the twilight declines. At night, when the moon does not rise till
late, the heavens are brilliant with stars. In the east Arcturus is up;
the Great Bear, the Lesser Bear, and Cassiopeia are ranged about the Pole.
Procyon goes before the Dog; the noble constellation of Orion stretches
broad across the sky; almost overhead lucent Capella looks down. Aries
droops towards the west; the Bull follows with the red Aldebaran, and the
Pleiades. Behind these, Castor and Pollux, and next the cloudlike,
nebulous Cancer. Largest of all, great Sirius is flaming in the south,
quivering with the ebb and flow of his light, sometimes with an emerald
scintillation like a dewdrop on which a sunbeam glances.

The busy summer, with its haymaking, reaping, and continuous succession of
harvest work, passes too swiftly for refl