softness in the south wind.The song-sparrow is singing in the apple-tree.Another bird-note is heard,--two long, musical whistles, liquid but metallic.A brown bird this one, darker than the song-sparrow, and without the latter's light stripes, and smaller, yet bigger than the queer little chipping-bird.He wants a familiar name, this sweet singer, who appears to be a sort of sparrow.He is such a contrast to the blue-jays, who have arrived in a passion, as usual, screaming and scolding, the elegant, spoiled beauties! They wrangle from morning till night, these beautiful, high-tempered aristocrats.
Encouraged by the birds, by the bursting of the lilac-buds, by the peeping-up of the crocuses, by tradition, by the sweet flutterings of a double hope, another sign appears.This is the Easter bonnets, most delightful flowers of the year, emblems of innocence, hope, devotion.Alas that they have to be worn under umbrellas, so much thought, freshness, feeling, tenderness have gone into them! And a northeast storm of rain, accompanied with hail, comes to crown all these virtues with that of self-sacrifice.The frail hat is offered up to the implacable season.In fact, Nature is not to be forestalled nor hurried in this way.Things cannot be pushed.
Nature hesitates.The woman who does not hesitate in April is lost.
The appearance of the bonnets is premature.The blackbirds see it.
They assemble.For two days they hold a noisy convention, with high debate, in the tree-tops.Something is going to happen.
Say, rather, the usual thing is about to occur.There is a wind called Auster, another called Eurus, another called Septentrio, another Meridies, besides Aquilo, Vulturnus, Africus.There are the eight great winds of the classical dictionary,--arsenal of mystery and terror and of the unknown,--besides the wind Euroaquilo of St.
Luke.This is the wind that drives an apostle wishing to gain Crete upon the African Syrtis.If St.Luke had been tacking to get to Hyannis, this wind would have forced him into Holmes's Hole.The Euroaquilo is no respecter of persons.
These winds, and others unnamed and more terrible, circle about New England.They form a ring about it: they lie in wait on its borders, but only to spring upon it and harry it.They follow each other in contracting circles, in whirlwinds, in maelstroms of the atmosphere:
they meet and cross each other, all at a moment.This New England is set apart: it is the exercise-ground of the weather.Storms bred elsewhere come here full-grown: they come in couples, in quartets, in choruses.If New England were not mostly rock, these winds would carry it off; but they would bring it all back again, as happens with the sandy portions.What sharp Eurus carries to Jersey, Africus brings back.When the air is not full of snow, it is full of dust.
This is called one of the compensations of Nature.
This is what happened after the convention of the blackbirds: Amoaning south wind brought rain; a southwest wind turned the rain to snow; what is called a zephyr, out of the west, drifted the snow; a north wind sent the mercury far below freezing.Salt added to snow increases the evaporation and the cold.This was the office of the northeast wind: it made the snow damp, and increased its bulk; but then it rained a little, and froze, thawing at the same time.The air was full of fog and snow and rain.And then the wind changed, went back round the circle, reversing everything, like dragging a cat by its tail.The mercury approached zero.This was nothing uncommon.We know all these winds.We are familiar with the different "forms of water."All this was only the prologue, the overture.If one might be permitted to speak scientifically, it was only the tuning of the instruments.The opera was to come,--the Flying Dutchman of the air.
There is a wind called Euroclydon: it would be one of the Eumenides;only they are women.It is half-brother to the gigantic storm-wind of the equinox.The Euroclydon is not a wind: it is a monster.Its breath is frost.It has snow in its hair.It is something terrible.
It peddles rheumatism, and plants consumption.
The Euroclydon knew just the moment to strike into the discord of the weather in New England.From its lair about Point Desolation, from the glaciers of the Greenland continent, sweeping round the coast, leaving wrecks in its track, it marched right athwart the other conflicting winds, churning them into a fury, and inaugurating chaos.
It was the Marat of the elements.It was the revolution marching into the " dreaded wood of La Sandraie."Let us sum it all up in one word: it was something for which there is no name.
Its track was destruction.On the sea it leaves wrecks.What does it leave on land? Funerals.When it subsides, New England is prostrate.It has left its legacy: this legacy is coughs and patent medicines.This is an epic; this is destiny.You think Providence is expelled out of New England? Listen!
Two days after Euroclydon, I found in the woods the hepatica--earliest of wildwood flowers, evidently not intimidated by the wild work of the armies trampling over New England--daring to hold up its tender blossom.One could not but admire the quiet pertinacity of Nature.She had been painting the grass under the snow.In spots it was vivid green.There was a mild rain,--mild, but chilly.The clouds gathered, and broke away in light, fleecy masses.There was a softness on the hills.The birds suddenly were on every tree, glancing through the air, filling it with song, sometimes shaking raindrops from their wings.The cat brings in one in his mouth.He thinks the season has begun, and the game-laws are off.He is fond of Nature, this cat, as we all are: he wants to possess it.At four o'clock in the morning there is a grand dress-rehearsal of the birds.
Not all the pieces of the orchestra have arrived; but there are enough.The grass-sparrow has come.This is certainly charming.