A Turkish boy hath torn it;

Hungarian boy will heal it,

With fiddle, fife, and drum."

But what child has a heart to sing in this capricious clime of
ours, where Spring comes sailing in from the sea, with wet and heavy
cloud-sails, and the misty pennon of the East-wind nailed to the
mast! Yet even here, and in the stormy month of March even, there
are bright, warm mornings, when we open our windows to inhale the
balmy air. The pigeons fly to and fro, and we hear the whirring
sound of wings. Old flies crawl out of the cracks, to sun
themselves; and think it is summer. They die in their conceit; and
so do our hearts within us, when the cold sea-breath comes from the
eastern sea; and again,

"The driving hail

Upon the window beats with icy flail."

The red-flowering maple is first in blossom, its beautiful purple
flowers unfolding a fortnight before the leaves. The moose-wood
follows, with rose-colored buds and leaves; and the dog-wood, robed
in the white of its own pure blossoms. Thencomes the sudden
rain-storm; and the birds fly to and fro, and shriek. Where do they
hide themselves in such storms? at what firesides dry their feathery
cloaks? At the fireside of the great, hospitable sun, to-morrow, not
before;--they must sit in wet garments until then.