the first rose of June.

Straight go the white petals to the heart; straight the mind's
glance goes back to how many other pageants of summer in old times!
When perchance the sunny days were even more sunny; when the stilly
oaks were full of mystery, lurking like the Druid's mistletoe in
the midst of their mighty branches. A glamour in the heart came
back to it again from every flower; as the sunshine was reflected
from them, so the feeling in the heart returned tenfold. To the
dreamy summer haze, love gave a deep enchantment, the colours were
fairer, the blue more lovely in the lucid sky. Each leaf finer,
and the gross earth enamelled beneath the feet. A sweet breath on
the air, a soft warm hand in the touch of the sunshine, a glance in
the gleam of the rippled waters, a whisper in the dance of the
shadows. The ethereal haze lifted the heavy oaks and they were
buoyant on the mead, the rugged bark was chastened and no longer
rough, each slender flower beneath them again refined. There was a
presence everywhere, though unseen, on the open hills, and not shut
out under the dark pines. Dear were the June roses then because
for another gathered. Yet even dearer now with so many years as it
were upon the petals; all the days that have been before, all the
heart-throbs, all our hopes lie in this opened bud. Let not the
eyes grow dim, look not back but forward; the soul must uphold
itself like the sun. Let us labour to make the heart grow larger
as we become older, as the spreading oak gives more shelter. That
we could but take to the soul some of the greatness and the beauty
of the summer!

Still the pageant moves. The song-talk of the finches rises and
sinks like the tinkle of a waterfall. The green-finches have been