There are no days in the whole round year more delicious than those
which often come to us in the latter half of April. On these days one
goes forth in the morning, and an Italian warmth broods over all the
hills, taking visible shape in a glistening mist of silvered azure, with
which mingles the smoke from many bonfires. The sun trembles in his
own soft rays, till one understands the old English tradition, that he
dances on Easter-Day. Swimming in a sea of glory, the tops of the hills
look nearer than their bases, and their glistening watercourses seem
close to the eye, as is their liberated murmur to the ear. All across
this broad interval the teams are ploughing. The grass in the meadow
seems all to have grown green since yesterday. The blackbirds jangle
in the oak, the robin is perched upon the elm, the song-sparrow on the
hazel, and the bluebird on the apple-tree. There rises a hawk and sails
slowly, the stateliest of airy things, a floating dream of long and
languid summer-hours. But as yet, though there is warmth enough for a
sense of luxury, there is coolness enough for exertion. No tropics can
offer such a burst of joy; indeed, no zone much warmer than our Northern
States can offer a genuine spring. There can be none where there is no
winter, and the monotone of the seasons is broken only by wearisome
rains. Vegetation and birds being distributed over the year, there is no
burst of verdure nor of song. But with us, as the buds are swelling, the
birds are arriving; they are building their nests almost simultaneously;
and in all the Southern year there is no such rapture of beauty and of
melody as here marks every morning from the last of April onward.

But days even earlier than these in April have a charm,--even days that
seem raw and rainy, when the sky is dull and a bequest of March-wind
lingers, chasing the squirrel from the tree and the children from the
meadows. There is a fascination in walking through these bare early
woods,--there is such a pause of preparation, winter's work is so