Green Mountain Freeman

The Month of March.

The three closing days of the month were very Spring-like, and some of the early flowers are giving signs of development, and many green shoots are peering above the surface, deceived by the mildness of the weather, not merely to lush young plants without experience, as Sydney Smith once said on a like occasion, but all plants that have been deceived before by premature Springs and frosts, for such, he added, "one has no pity."

No wrote the cynic, but trusting loveless should never shall never want for pity, and it is more becoming to adopt the language of an anonymous poet, who says:

"Oh, gentle flowers!
Each spring, as forth I walk
To meet Joy,
And listen to the talk
Of brooks that also greet you,
What hours
Are those, ere yet a leaf is known,
To meet you all alone,
Musing with those large, truthful eyes
Upon the treacherous skies,
In uncomplaining mood,
On the bleak solitude;
Breathing your fragile lives away,
Unconscious of your fleeting stay.

"Ye never fail,
Felt is the first warm sun,
And forth begins the strife
Of many a hidden life,
Left struggling in its birth,
To escape the darksome earth,
Till, stealing on the gale,
Comes borne an infant scent,
And, one by one
On either hand
A fairy company ye stand,
Happy, content--
On earth nothing so fair and innocent"