the catkins of the aspens were peeping from their imprisoning scales,
and by the first of March they were half out, their white silken
fringes and tiny clusters of rose-pink stamens glistening in the
sunlight as if spring's pink cheeks were sheltered by soft, gray fur.
We look up at these fleecy clusters, freed from the brownish
budscales, with a far background of bluest sky, and think that it must
have been such a grove as this to which the Princess Nausicca sent
Ulysses to wait for her, described by Homer as "a beautiful grove of
aspen poplars, a fountain and a meadow."

Only an aspen tree in an Iowa slough! Yes, but more than that. This is
the first sign of the resurrection which we call spring. When the
pilgrims to the Eleusinian mysteries were ridiculed because of the
commonplace nature of their symbols, they rightly replied that more
than that which met the eye existed in the sacred things; that
whosoever entered the temple of Lindus, to do honor to Demeter, the
productive and nourishing power of the earth, must be pure in heart if
he would gain reward. The square, the flag, the cross, the swelling
bud of spring, what are they all but symbols of the realities?

We shall forget these first humble flowers of spring by-and-by when
we find a brilliant cardinal flower, or a showy lady's slipper, just
as we forget the timid, tender tones of the bluebird when the grand
song of the grosbeak floods the evening air, or the exquisite melody
of the hermit thrush spiritualizes the leafy woods; just as many a man
forgets the ministrations of his humbler friends in early life when he
has climbed into the society of those whom earth calls great. But the
aspens will neither grieve nor murmur. They will continue to make
delightful color contrasts with their smooth white trunks at the
gateways of the dark woods in winter and whisper to every lightest