Daily American telegraph. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1851-1852, 1852-06-01
From Dickens's Household Words. ]
What has become of Winter.


What has become of Winter.
People are now putting on the best faces they
can to welcome the Spring Welcome the
Spring indeed when we have had no winter
welcome light pudding, when we have had
no meat | trust am Briton, and know how
to grumble. "In those vernal seasons of the
year when the air is calm and pleasant" says
Milton, "it were an injury and sullenness
and partake in her rejoicings with heaven and
earth If Nature is mean enough to rejoice
after having defrauded me of my winter,
scratch her name out of my visiting book; I
won't " go out and see her.
want my Winter. AS Fanshawe says;
Spring, the years youth fair mother of new flowers
New leaves new loves, drawn by the winged Hours
Thou art returned but nought returns with thee,
Save my lost joys regretful memory
Now Spring, it would serve you right that
lost joys regretful memory should stick to you
also; and mean to make you cry half April
through, by letting you understand what pret-
ty things I might have said about you, if the
conduct of Nature on late occasion had not
put me out of temper. want you to feel what
you have lost, and for that reason only touch
you with a little praise which | might have
meant in earnest, but distinctly now inform you
that utter only out of spite; to let you see how
deEcately could hatter, if chose your vanity
and beauty. Now hear what ! could have
done.
Dear little Spring, the black and withered
twigs that have worn all the same livery OF
mourning throughout the dreary months OF
winter, because there was no skating to be had,
are trickng themselves out in their holyday
garbs, because you are coming down to see
them. One is dressed in virgin white, one wears
Il saffron-colored robe, another puts on blue,
and some twig somewhere plays the dandy in
scarlet uniform. The sunny slopes are reek-
ing with the early mists, and the fields are lay
ing down their carpets for the lambs to dance
upon. The sap is stirring in the trees and
swelling in the bud, and the early breeze comes
fresh and fragrant, as if it blew through the
boudoir of Nature, while she was getting up in
the morning and making a free use of her per.
| fumery. The owl is hootng from the turret
and by so doing shows his wisdom for to hoot
at Spring, when she appears out of her turn, is
only proper Her true cue is hard frost " and
she should have waited for it, The owl is hoot-
ing from the turret the rook screaming from
his swinging nest on the tall tree top and the
cuckoo shouting from the lonely glen. The
blackbird whistles from the husband he may
whistle, if it's Winter that he wants to see ever
again on this side of the year 1000 I'm driven
to be despondent. The blackbird whistles from
the bush, and the throstle from the grove, and
the deep coo of the ringdove is heard in the
woods The feathered emigrants who had ta-
ken refuge on our shores from the iliberal edicts
of an arctic winter-though an arctic winter
is much better than none-lberty of the plume
being restored, go back to the North again.
Those who emigrated from our winter, before
wa wpr tn hoy
now returning one fight after another, to join
in the ornthological concert that takes place
under the management Of Spring. The mar
tins and the wrens and the redstarts have come
into the concert with small pipes the nightn-
gale has come with flute, the linnet and the
goldfnch with lutte, the lark that sky-rocket
in feathers, gets its music up so thoroughly
that as it twinkles mere speck in the clear
air of the sunrise, almost out of sight and very
far from being out of hearing we know very
well what the thing is-it is one of the morning
stars singing for joy.
Then there are the woodlark and the pipit-
the lark of the wilderness-whose health re-
oures that they should battle their beaks in
music every morning From the tall hedge or
cottage-shading tree, the magpie, dressed like
q gentleman in black and white chatters as
idly as is usual with gentlemen who are not
men. In the heart of the thick wood the jay
is screaming, or giving an entertainment simi-
lar to that of the late MIR Mathews, to an au-
dience as full Of noises as the House of Com
mons. The jackdaw jabbers from steeple
and along the wild, or from naked cliff. the
raven bids us think about a sepulchre if we are
superstitious. If we are reasonable souls, it
does not Except when dogs are fighting and
on few similar occasions, beasts birds, and
insects, are happy set of fellows and "in Rea-
sons ear they all rejoice The crow means to
be jolly when he sings, as thoroughly as any
nightingale
Then, Spring if you had fair claim on my
praises | should not object to state that these
winged voices-rich, and abundant, and varied
as they are, in the glades and groves of our, on
the whole not disagreeable country--make but
a small portion of the pleasant noise with
which you are accompanied There is voice
from all things. Emancipated from the win
try thraldom which had claimed their waters,
(you perceive how inappropriate the praise
would be, when no brook has been frozen, the
streams are murmuring through mead and val
ley; the trout are leaping in their depths, and
cattle lowing on their banks The bleat of the
lamb comes from the hillside, mint is, happi.
y at the same period fresh and green,) and
the laughter Of young human voices fills the
sunny glade. The doors of habitations stand
wide open to let in the air Of heaven the fire.
side where the poker stimulates no more the
tagging coal, and fires are dying of neglect
the fireside is forsaken for the field; and the
whistle of the oughman-painfully prone to
perform niger melodes-comes cheerily from
the up.turned glebe. But the great Spring
minstrel is the Wind; wind music is the sweet
est In the Spring it plays all kinds of melo-
dies sOmetimas n forest niece on ita rombones