After that the
hedges gradually filled with leaf, and were fully coloured when the
turtle-dove began to sing, but still the elms were only just budding, and
but faintly tinted with green.
Chaucer was right in singing of the 'floures' of May notwithstanding the
northern winds and early frosts and December-like character of our Mays.
That the cycle of weather was warmer in his time is probably true, but
still even now, under all the drawbacks of a late and wintry season, his
description is perfectly accurate. If any one had gone round the fields
on old May-day, the 13th, _his_ May-day, they might have found the deep
blue bird's-eye veronica, anemones, star-like stitchworts, cowslips,
buttercups, lesser celandine, daisies, white blackthorn, and gorse in
bloom--in short, a list enough to make a page bright with colour, though
the wind might be bitter. In the coldest and most exposed place I ever
lived in, and with a spring as cold as this, the May garlands included
orchids, and the meadows were perfectly golden with marsh-marigolds. For
some reason or other the flowers seem to come as near as they can to
their time, let the weather be as hard as it may. They are more regular
than the migrant birds, and much more so than the trees. The elm, oak,
and ash appear to wait a great deal on the sun and the atmosphere, and
their boughs give much better indications of what the weather has really
been than birds and flowers. The migrant birds try their hardest to keep
time, and some of them arrive a week or more before they are noticed.
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