The sphere-blooms of the dandelion have left their anchorage and are floating away in the warm wind. That same wind bears with it a vague scent, for the wild flowers are open to the sun, while the white buds of the may-tree and the lilac-blossom of the keeper’s cottage yonder have come before their time. The yellow celandine petals have gone from the meadow, already their little heart-shaped leaves are tinged at the edge with the rust of decay; the brighter buttercups drink deeply of the poured sun-wine, and the red sorrel and pale cuckoo flowers move as the wind comes more strongly. No form of flower life remains for long. When I came here but a few weeks since the celandine was everywhere; a brave flower, for it rises so early, and is one of the first signs of life stirring again in the cold earth. Then the wood-anemones shone like stars among the brown leaves under the hazel wands and ashpoles of the covert, and on the raised bank near the vermin tree where the marauder stoats and pirate crows hang, the sweet violets drooped their heads, shy in their loveliness. I passed by that bank to-day, but the sweet violets have gone, even as the wood-anemones are withering. Nothing remains for long. But the first swift screams high in the azure, his black curved wings bearing him in fast circles, less graceful than the swallow, who floats on the bosom of the wind, then falls and turns sharply rather than sweeps through the air with the effortless thrusts of the swift. So in the place of the violet’s scent I have the scream of the swift, and the cuckoo calls above the dying wind-flowers. I leant against a wooden fence, placed to keep the cattle in the meadow from straying into the covert behind, and to guard them from the brook that ran at the edge of the hazels. High nettles hid the lower rails of the fence, growing straight and green, and giving off a heavy odour from their flowers. From afar a cuckoo was calling, but near me the only sounds were the burring of the dusky humble bees at the nettle flowers, and the soft voice of the brook. A great cloud shadow came rushing over the meadow, the wind lost its warmth, and a few drops pattered on the hawthorn. Immediately a blackbird sang on the topmost bough of an oak tree in the wood, and a wren trilled from some hidden bush. Gently the rain fell, plashing on the veined leaves of the hazels; a yellow-green wave of light descended the distant hills and followed the black shadow over cornfield, meadow, and webbed pattern of hop field, washing the red oast-houses with instant colour. The swift sunlight swept down to the meadow, the shadow passed onwards, and again the sun gave its vitalising rays to the grass and the wild flowers.