As Well Suppose
The Trees Without Leaves As The Summer Air Without Swallows.
Ever since
of old time the Greeks went round from house to house in spring singing
the swallow song, these birds have been looked upon as the friends of
man, and almost as the very givers of the sunshine.
The swallow's come, winging
His way to us here;
Fair hours is he bringing,
And a happy new year!
They had a song for everything, the mill song, the reapers' song, just as
in Somerset, the apple country, they still have a cider song, or perhaps,
rather, an orchard song. Such rhymes might well be chanted about the hay
and the wheat, or at the coming of the green leaf, or the yellowing of
the acorns, when the cawing of the rooks is incessant, a kind of autumn
festival. It seems so natural that the events of the year should be met
with a song. But somehow a very hard and unobservant spirit has got
abroad into our rural life, and people do not note things as the old folk
did. They do not mark the coming of the swallows, nor any of the dates
that make the woodland almanack. It is a pity that there should be such
indifference - that the harsh ways of the modern town should press so
heavily on the country. This summer, too, there seems a marked absence of
bees, butterflies, and other insects in the fields. One bee will come
along, calling at every head of white clover.
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