PROSE IDYLLS, NEW AND OLD




Contents:
A Charm of Birds
Chalk-Stream Studies
The Fens
My Winter-Garden
From Ocean to Sea
North Devon



I. 'A CHARM OF BIRDS.' {1}



Is it merely a fancy that we English, the educated people among us at
least, are losing that love for spring which among our old
forefathers rose almost to worship? That the perpetual miracle of
the budding leaves and the returning song-birds awakes no longer in
us the astonishment which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the
old world, when the sun was a god who was sick to death each winter,
and returned in spring to life and health, and glory; when the death
of Adonis, at the autumnal equinox, was wept over by the Syrian
women, and the death of Baldur, in the colder north, by all living
things, even to the dripping trees, and the rocks furrowed by the
autumn rains; when Freya, the goddess of youth and love, went forth