Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-04-30
SPRING FANCIES


GPRING Is a. time of mixed emotions
- After the lethargy of the still white win
ter the intoxicating sweetness of the spring
breeze, the fragrance of budding trees and
flowers and hedges, the subtle enticement OF
lambs and heifers and colts at play and all
the poignant thrill of life stirring and green
things growing stir UP keen susceptibility
to both the pleasures and the pains or the
changing season. Among the pleasures are
taking off ones hannels helping to open the
baseball season and drinking iced tea with
white ribbons, or gin riclSeys without. Among
the pains are housecleaning, moving, giving
up oysters and reading summer-resort book
let's.
The women have the additional pain this
wear of throwing away all their last sum-
mers dresses because the skirts are too mar
row. Or there is the equally narrowing
alternative of two weeks of the dressmaker
while all the skirts are turned upside down
and trimmed with ruff1es of contrasting
material.
It is springtime in the magazines, as well
as out of doors, and in spite Of all the hack
neyed wtticisms about the springtime poet
he and she have contributed some very
charming verses for the occasion. Helen
Hoyt appears in The International Q with
a charming, tripping spring poem' called
April Shadows"
Shadows shadows, shadows,
Melted all across the grass!
How would 1t feel to step on themT
Would they trip me as 1 passF
Gentle spreading, cloud-gray patterns,
Pale and delicately laid;
Lovely trees, with twtgs and brancnes.-
All of shadows made
will dance among these branches!
In and out the sunny spaces
Where the shadow trees are lying
Where they bend in hollow places.
will dance an April dance,
In between the branches gray;
In and out the soft young shadows,
I will skip and play.
John Galsworthy. who writes such Won
derful lyric prose- gives a sense of spring
time and young love in his serial story In
Scribner's (2) to set the pulse a-fiutter.
May blossom was beginning to come out along
the hedge OF the private grounds that bordered
that bit OF Cockney Common, and from H.
warmed by the sun, the scent stole up 10 her.
Familiar, like many children of the cultured
classes with the pagan and fairy tales of
nature, she forgot them all the moment she was
really by herself with earth and sky. Those
great creatures in their breadth. their SOFT ana
stirring continuity, rejected bookish fancy.
They woke in her rapture and yearning
sort of long delight, a never-appeased munger
Crouchlng, hands round knees. she turned her
the white clouds go slowly by and catch all
the songs that the birds sang. And every now
and then she drew deep breath 1t was true
what dad had said; There was no real heart
lessness in nature II was warm, beating,
breathing. And II things ate each other, what
did It matter? They had lived and died quickly,
helping to make others live. The sacred swing
and circle Of 1t went on forever, full and har-
monious under the friendly stars II was won
derful to be alive! And all done by love, Lovel
More, more. more Lowell And then DEATH II it
must come For, after all, TO Media death was
so far away. so unimaginaby dim and distant.
that it did not really count
Springtime and Death
A very different sense of springtime is
given in a recent article by Albert ]. BeY-
eridge in Golfers (s). describing recent trip
from Berlin down into northern France. 1t
is a grimly incongruohs picture he draws, OF
death and rotting decay spreading over the
budding fields which should be stirring with
new life and hope.
You are many miles into France when the
gaunt walls OF shel-destroyed houses hrst nash
past you. space farther on, and you stop for
a moment at a good-Eized towni three wagons,
burdened with great loads OF straw, driven by
soldiers; other wagons loaded with proyisionsi
a long train the siding bearing munitions OF
war covered with canvass two cofans resting
on the station platform, and one more borne
by four stalWart soldieFsi along the central
street houses smashed ana crumpled In an
open space, some 200 sturdy, bearded, middle
aged BfaNc~fafed men IN long plAch UNIFORM
coats with black leather caps bearing gold
crosses above the peaks-an these are signals OF
your approach TO the nghtiug zone. Yet, alb
surd paradox. tust beyond the town 3 nock OF
sheep grazins, n q nearby held peasant ploW-
ing on a roadway steam roller grunting
back and forth n its leveling toll
Strange psychology YOU are more attracted
by the phenomena Of fresh and growing life
surrounding this havoc than you are BY the
cannon's heavy handiWork. The pale green q
winter wheat. already coloTins family ia nalds
below. aetonishes you moFa faan the huge pock-