The fact that yesterday was the spring equinox was amply observed by the clerk of the weather who has furnished a few seasonable days with which to usher in the event, though whether it will continue over the holidays remains to be seen. Living circumscribed lives as so many residents of Shanghai do, they have little opportunity of witnessing the gradual return of life to the world after the death of winter, but the writer of the Country Diary has already recorded many of those little signs to be seen in the coun try bearing testimony to the fact that the green sap is rising, and nature preparing to embark upon the cycle in which the earth is made to bring forth her riches for the benefit of mankind. It is a season which even the poets treat gently. If it rains "the clouds consign their treasures to the fields" despite the fact that the season may be most unpleasantly moist, while if it is dry the farmer goes wondering wha! bad luck the rest of the year will bring him. There is, however, one versifier who has handled the topic of spring with a little realism:—
If there comes a little thaw Still the air is chill and raw, Here and there a patch of snow Dirtier than the ground below, Dribbles down a marshy flood:
Ankle-deep you stick in mud In the meadows while you sing, "This is Spring."
But Cranch is an exception to the rule, for throughout the ages the poets have invested spring with a romantic garb, all decked out in flowers and universal green, summoning ur visions of "daisies pied, and violets blue, and lady smocks all silver white and cuckoo bud of yellow hue." Itis still a bit early for these accompaniments to spring, but they are only a few weeks away, and in less than no time the strange bean poles which line the Bund will sprout their few reluctant leaves blazoning te an unheeding world that Spring has come.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.