"At first the snowdrop's bells are seen, Then close against the sheltering wall The tulip's horn of dusky green, The peony's dark unfolding ball. "The golden-chaliced crocus burns; The long narcissus blades appear; The cone-beaked hyacinth returns To light her blue-flamed chandelier. "The willow's whistling lashes, wrung By the wild winds of gusty March, With sallow leaflets lightly strung, Are swaying by the tufted larch. "See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, That flames in glory for an hour,-- Behold it withering, then look up-- How meek the forest-monarchs flower! "When wake the violets, Winter dies; When sprout the elm buds, Spring is near; When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, 'Bud, little roses, Spring is here.'" The universal flower in the old-time garden was the Lilac; it was the most beloved bloom of spring, and gave a name to Spring--Lilac tide. The Lilac does not promise "spring is coming"; it is the emblem of the _presence_ of spring. Dr. Holmes says, "When Lilacs blossom, Summer cries, '_Spring is here_'" in every cheerful and lavish bloom. Lilacs shade the front yard; Lilacs grow by the kitchen doorstep; Lilacs spring up beside the barn; Lilacs shade the well; Lilacs hang over the spring house; Lilacs crowd by the fence side and down the country road. In many colonial dooryards it was the only shrub--known both to lettered and unlettered folk as Laylock, and spelt Laylock too. Walter Savage Landor, when Laylock had become antiquated, still clung to the word, and used it with a stubborn persistence such as he alone could compass, and which seems strange in the most finished classical scholar of his day. [Illustration: Lilacs at Craigie House, the Home of Longfellow.] "I shall not go to town while the Lilacs bloom," wrote Longfellow; and what Lilac lover could have left a home so Lilac-embowered as Craigie House! A view of its charms in Lilac tide is given in outline on this page; the great Lilac trees seem wondrously suited to the fine old Revolutionary mansion. [Illustration: Box-edged Garden at the Home of Longfellow.]