Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: No. III.-MAECH.
These, marching softly, thus In order went. And after them the monthes all riding came: First, sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent And armed strongly, rode upon a ram, The same which over Helleapontus swam; Yet In his hand a spade he also hent, And in a bag all sorts of seeds ysame, Which on the earth he strowed as he went, And fild her womb with fruitfuH hope of nourishment.‘ Spenser. The sun has now risen considerably on the ecliptic, and should the wind keep away from the east, the revivifying influences of the solar heat begin to be felt. The song of birds begins to be heard, and chief of all at this season, the mavis may be heard pouring forth his evening hymn in notes by distance made more sweet. Some of the earlier flowers begin to gem the garden and lawn. In our Scottish climate the snowdrop (which blooms much earlier in the South, and even here, in a very mild season, rears its spotless white in the preceding months) and the yellow and purple crocus appear. An elegant authoress, Charlotte Smith, thus apostrophises the snowdrop: ? Like pendant flakes of vegetating snow, The early herald of the infant year, Ere yet the adventurous crocus dares to blow, Beneath the orchard boughs, thy buds appear. While still the cold north-east unjrenial lowers, And scarce the hazel in the leafless copse, Or sillows, show their downy powdered flowers, The grass is spangled with thy silver drops. Migratory birds begin to go or come, as their breeding habitats dictate, and our own familiar rooks are time out of mind alleged to begin building their nests on the first Sunday of March. This tradition has probably arisen from the leisure of the Sabbath permitting our forefathers to observe the phenomena of nature more close…