or 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 the turtle is heard in our land; the
fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines, with the
tender grape give a good smell. Arise my love, my fair one
and come away."

THE SONG OF SOLOMON.

Out in the woods the leaves that rustled so bravely when we shuffled
our feet through them last fall are sodden and matted. It is warm in the
woods, for the sun strikes down through the bare branches, and the cold
wind is fended off. The fleshy lances of the spring beauty have stabbed
upward through the mulch, and a tiny cup, delicately veined with pink,
hangs its head bashfully. Anemones on brown wire stems aspire without
a leaf, and in moist patches are May pinks, the trailing arbutus of the
grown-ups. As we carry home a bunch, the heads all lopping every way
like the heads of strangled babies, we can almost hear behind us in the
echoing forests a long, heart-broken moan, as of Rachel mourning for
her children, and will not be comforted because they are not. The wild
flowers don't look so pretty in the tin cups of water as they did back
in the woods. There is something cheap and common about them. Throw 'em
out. The poor plants that planned through all the ages how to attract
the first smart insects of the season, and trick them into setting
the seeds for next years' flowers did not reckon that these very means
whereby they hoped to rear a family would prove their undoing at the
hands of those who plume themselves a little on their refinement, they
"are so fond of flowers."

Old Winter hates to give up that he is beaten. It's a funny thing, but
when you hear a person sing, "Good-a-by, Summer, good-a-by, good-a-by,"
you always feel kind of sad and sorry. It's going, the time of year when
you can stay out of doors most of the time, when you can go in swimming,
and the Sunday-school picnic, and the circus, and play base-ball and
camp out, and there's no school, and everything nice, and watermelons,
and all like that. Good-by, good-by, and you begin to sniff a little.
The departure of summer is dignified and even splendid, but the earth
looks so sordid and draggle-trailed when winter goes, that onions could
not bring a tear. Old winter likes to tease. Aha! You thought I
was gone, did you? "Not yet, my child, not yet!" And he sends us
huckleberry-