nor that I knew Edward's lions to the point of satiety; but the
passion and the call of the divine morning were high in my blood.

Earth to earth! That was the frank note, the joyous summons of
the day; and they could not but jar and seem artificial, these
human discussions and pretences, when boon Nature, reticent no
more, was singing that full-throated song of hers that thrills
and claims control of every fibre. The air was wine; the moist
earth-smell, wine; the lark's song, the wafts from the cow-shed
at top of the field, the pant and smoke of a distant train,--all
were wine,--or song, was it? or odour, this unity they all
blended into? I had no words then to describe it, that earth-
effluence of which I was so conscious; nor, indeed, have I found
words since. I ran sideways, shouting; I dug glad heels into the
squelching soil; I splashed diamond showers from puddles with a
stick; I hurled clods skywards at random, and presently I
somehow found myself singing. The words were mere nonsense,--
irresponsible babble; the tune was an improvisation, a weary,
unrhythmic thing of rise and fall: and yet it seemed to me a
genuine utterance, and just at that moment the one thing fitting
and right and perfect. Humanity would have rejected it with
scorn, Nature, everywhere singing in the same key, recognised and
accepted it without a flicker of dissent.

All the time the hearty wind was calling to me companionably from
where he swung and bellowed in the tree-tops. "Take me for guide
to-day," he seemed to plead. "Other holidays you have tramped it
in the track of the stolid, unswerving sun; a belated truant, you
have dragged a weary foot homeward with only a pale,
expressionless moon for company. To-day why not I, the