THE CREST OF SPRING
[Illustration]
Flickering soft leaves spangled with sunlit rain give May a robe
diamond-sown, as lighted spray may weave for the sea. Skimming wings
catch sunrise colors. The grass blade is borne down by the exquisite
burden of one translucent pearl. This is the luminous youth of the year,
and its splendor lies deeper than the glitter of dew-and-rain jewels,
for it is visible in the forbidding strongholds of hemlock and pine,
where a sunless world still shines with May. In one month only Nature
lights her unquenchable lamp. Look down upon the orchard from a hill:
the young leaves are lanterns of sheer green silk, not the richly
draped and shadowy foliage of full summer. Lustrous is the new red of
poison ivy and woodbine, of swamp maple and slowly budding oak. Where in
July the hard light will play as upon metal, lake and stream are faintly
shimmering gray. Rain cannot dim the radiant freshness, for trees thus
queenly clothed in blossoms never bend submissive to the pelting skies.
Let that fragment of creation which bears umbrellas prostrate its spirit
before the "blossom storm," seven times renewed--the answer of the
flowered thorn is always exultant. Amid departing petals which have
played their role and gone, voyaging on raindrops, "the May month flaps
its glad green leaves like wings."
[Illustration]
Wild shrubs upon the mountain slopes are in thronging bloom. Delicately
pink and nectar-laden, the prodigal azalea calls to the honeybees,
always bitterly industrious and severely intent upon duty amid a general
festival. It is a great satisfaction sometimes to find a bee overtaken
by intoxication and night within a water lily or hollyhock, his
obtrusive good example smothered sweetly. For once he was not at the
hive in time to murmur of his heavy day of posting from garden to
meadow! Dowered with a white simplicity beyond the pensive moonflower's,
the bracts of the dogwood seem afloat among gray branches--misty, seen
far off; clear cut to nearer view; eloquent of spring; without fragrance
as without pretense. The mountain laurel holds above gleaming leaves its
marvelously carven cups, faint pink or white, amber-flecked. All winter
it has kept the green, when ground pine lay snowbound and spruces sagged
with sleet. The victor may find his wreath at any time of year, for our
laurel has it ready. High toward the stars in regal manner the tulip
trees lift their broader chalices. It is probably in these, on the
topmost boughs, that the fairies sleep where mortals never climb up to
look in. Bilberry, shadbush, and brier stand in May marriage robes of
white, quiet and beautiful, scented at dusk when the sun warmth begins
to leave the blossoms. The red haw wears a little fine golden lace.
Farther south the rhododendron is gorgeously displayed--magenta verging
on damson.
The air is precious with the plentiful sweetness of lilac and magnolia,
of the memorial lavender lilac that summons homesickness to city parks
on evenings of May. The carmine glow of the flowering quince is here,
brought from its tropic wilderness. The long flushed curve of the almond
spray bends meekly toward the sod. Opulent is every bush, though its
blossoming may be secret. In colors beloved of kings, the velvet,
minutely perfect iris commands the garden path. Beside it in despair the
old-time bleeding-heart laments, and the bells of the valley lily hang,
chiming fragrance. Impatient climb the red-stalked peonies. The currant
is in green but pleadingly sweet blossom.
High, thick grass and clover in May fields are only the setting for the
dazzling buttercup, who shakes the dews from her closed petals before
daybreak and folds them prayerfully at about the time the birds turn
home. First white daisies, supremely fresh and lucid as all May's
glories are, show a few misleading foam flecks of the flood with which
they intend to overwhelm the crop of hay. Feathery yellow of the wild
mustard nods beside the road as if it were not anchored to immovable
roots. Already the sapphire star grass is hiding in the meadows. Gone
are the blossoms of the wild strawberry. The canary-colored five-finger
vine would lace itself over the world, given but half an opportunity. So
would the bramble of the fair white blossom and maroon-bordered leaf.
[Illustration]
Still are restless wings now upon the guarded nest. Some flash along the
turned furrow, circle near the eaves, dip sharply to the ripple. Willow
fronds are startled by the glinting blue of the kingfisher, scarlet of
the tanager. Once more the chimneys of old houses know the flickering
swallow. The oriole has come to the orchard again, the wren to the grape
arbor. Tiny rabbits, beholding for the first time what white clover can
be, twitch their noses in content. Tired children, returning from rifled
woodlands with too many posies, drop them in the path, like flower girls
intrusted to strew the way of summer. It is more comfortable not to
grant flowers the capacity for pain, but we demand, nevertheless, that
they enjoy giving pleasure to us, so doubtless they are glad to be of
service even in this thwarted fashion. Yet May's store is manifold; her
waiting buds can replace the scattered ones.
The face of Nature wears in the shining month a beauty something less
than mature, but more than the mischief and troubling intensity of
April. The wonder of the hour--the adieu of spring and the rejoicing
shout of coming summer--dwells there, a subdued, impassioned note. The
crest of the year's youth merges like all crests into the wave beyond,
renewed forever like the waves. To man alone has been given the
difficult task of keeping on without a spring. That singular adversity
is ours in common with inanimate things: May rose and lilac come back
each year to the forsaken house, but to the house May brings no change.
About it a world of snow becomes a world of blossoms, as for us, and the
sun creates. But the house needs aid of human hands, man of earth's
quickened beauty in luminous May.