Legion
Is A Little Word For The Butterflies; The Dry Pastures Among The Woods
Are Brown With Meadow-Brown; Blues
And coppers float in endless
succession; all the nations of Xerxes' army were but a handful to these.
In their
Millions they have perished; but somewhere, coiled up, as it
were, and sealed under the snow, there must have been the mothers and
germs of the equally vast crowds that will fill the atmosphere this year.
The great bumble-bee that shall be mother of hundreds, the yellow wasp
that shall be mother of thousands, were hidden there somewhere. The food
of the migrant birds that are coming from over sea was there dormant
under the snow. Many nations have a tradition of a former world destroyed
by a deluge of water, from the East to the West, from Greece to Mexico,
where the tail of a comet was said to have caused the flood; but in the
strange characters of the Zend is the legend of an ark (as it were)
prepared against the snow. It may be that it is the dim memory of a
glacial epoch. In this deep coombe, amid the dark oaks and snow, was the
fable of Zoroaster. For the coming of Ormuzd, the Light and Life Bringer,
the leaf slept folded, the butterfly was hidden, the germ concealed,
while the sun swept upwards towards Aries.
There is nothing so wearying as a long frost - the endless monotony, which
makes one think that the very fault we usually find with our climate - its
changeableness - is in reality its best quality. Rain, mist,
gales - anything; give us anything but weary, weary frost. But having once
fixed its mind, the weather will not listen to the usual signs of
alteration.
The larks sang at last high up against the grey cloud over the
frost-bound earth. They could not wait longer; love was strong in their
little hearts - stronger than the winter. After a while the
hedge-sparrows, too, began to sing on the top of the gorse-hedge about
the garden. By-and-by a chaffinch boldly raised his voice, ending with
the old story, 'Sweet, will you, will you kiss - me - dear?' Then there
came a hoar-frost, and the earth, which had been black, became white, as
its evaporated vapours began to gather and drops of rain to fall. Even
then the obstinate weather refused to quite yield, wrapping its cloak, as
it were, around it in bitter enmity. But in a day or two white clouds lit
up with sunshine appeared drifting over from the southward, and that was
the end. The old pensioner came to the door for his bread and cheese:
'The wind's in the south' he said, 'and I hopes she'll stay there' Five
dull yellow spots on the hedge - gorse bloom - that had remained unchanged
for so many weeks, took a fresh colour and became golden. By the constant
passing of the waggons and carts along the road that had been so silent
it was evident that the busy time of spring was here.
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