WILD FLOWERS


A fir-tree is not a flower, and yet it is associated in my mind with
primroses. There was a narrow lane leading into a wood, where I used to
go almost every day in the early months of the year, and at one corner it
was overlooked by three spruce firs. The rugged lane there began to
ascend the hill, and I paused a moment to look back. Immediately the high
fir-trees guided the eye upwards, and from their tops to the deep azure
of the March sky over, but a step from the tree to the heavens. So it has
ever been to me, by day or by night, summer or winter, beneath trees the
heart feels nearer to that depth of life the far sky means. The rest of
spirit found only in beauty, ideal and pure, comes there because the
distance seems within touch of thought. To the heaven thought can reach
lifted by the strong arms of the oak, carried up by the ascent of the
flame-shaped fir. Round the spruce top the blue was deepened,
concentrated by the fixed point; the memory of that spot, as it were, of
the sky is still fresh--I can see it distinctly--still beautiful and full
of meaning. It is painted in bright colour in my mind, colour thrice
laid, and indelible; as one passes a shrine and bows the head to the
Madonna, so I recall the picture and stoop in spirit to the aspiration it
yet arouses. For there is no saint like the sky, sunlight shining from
its face.

The fir-tree flowered thus before the primroses--the first of all to give
me a bloom, beyond reach but visible, while even the hawthorn buds
hesitated to open. Primroses were late there, a high district and thin