Colours Of Spring Quotes

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the colour of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

True beauty is a ray That springs from the sacred depths of the soul, and illuminates the body, just as life springs from the kernel of a stone and gives colour and scent to a flower.

Woods were ringed with a colour so soft, so subtle that it could scarcely be said to be a colour at all. It was more the idea of a colour - as if the trees were dreaming green dreams or thinking green thoughts.

I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death

It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in 'em," said Captain Jim. "When I ponder on them seeds I don't find it nowise hard to believe that we've got souls that'll live in other worlds. You couldn't hardly believe there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone colour and scent, if you hadn't seen the miracle, could you?

True beauty is a ray That springs from the sacred depths of the soul, and illuminates the body, just as life springs from the kernel of a stone and gives colour and scent to a flower.

It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made names for them new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lorien there was no stain.

The others cast themselves down upon the fragrant grass, but Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful. In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or for spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien, there was no stain.

Green is the soul of Spring. Summer may be dappled with yellow, Autumn with orange and Winter with white but Spring is drenched with the colour green.

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?

I cannot remember my past, my nose, or the colour of my eyes, or what my general opinion of myself is. Only in moments of emergency, at a crossing, at a kerb, the wish to preserve my body springs out and seizes me and stops me , here, before this omnibus. We insist, it seems, on living. Then again, indifference descends.

I love the arrival of a new season — each one bringing with it its own emotion: spring is full of hope; summer is freedom; autumn is a colourful release, and winter brings an enchanting peace. It's hard to pick which one I enjoy the most — each time the new one arrives, I remember its beauty and forget the previous one whose qualities have started to dim.

November again. It’s more winter than autumn. That’s not mist. It’s fog. The sycamore seeds hit the glass in the wind like – no, not like anything else, like sycamore seeds hitting window glass. There’ve been a couple of windy nights. The leaves are stuck to the ground with the wet. The ones on the paving are yellow and rotting, wanwood, leafmeal. One is so stuck that when it eventually peels away, its leafshape left behind, shadow of a leaf, will last on the pavement till next spring. The furniture in the garden is rusting. They’ve forgotten to put it away for the winter. The trees are revealing their structures. There’s the catch of fire in the air. All the souls are out marauding. But there are roses, there are still roses. In the damp and the cold, on a bush that looks done, there’s a wide-open rose, still. Look at the colour of it.

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?

The White Goddess All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean - In scorn of which we sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom we desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo. It was a virtue not to stay, To go our headstrong and heroic way Seeking her out at the volcano's head, Among pack ice, or where the track had faded Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers: Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's, Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips, With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips. The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate with green the Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But we are gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

It's a very cheery thing to come into London by any of these lines which run high and allow you to look down upon the houses like this." I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon explained himself. "Look at those big, isolated clumps of buildings rising up above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea." "The board-schools." "Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future.

...[F]ireworks had for her a direct and magical appeal. Their attraction was more complex than that of any other form of art. They had pattern and sequence, colour and sound, brilliance and mobility; they had suspense, surprise, and a faint hint of danger; above all, they had the supreme quality of transience, which puts the keenest edge on beauty and makes it touch some spring in the heart which more enduring excellences cannot reach.

And, Legolas, when the torches are kindled and men walk on the sandy floors under the echoing domes, ah! Then, Legolas, gems and crystals and veins of precious ore glint in the polished walls; and the light glows through folded marbles, shell-like, translucent as the living hands of Queen Galadriel. There are columns of white and saffron and dawn-rose, Legolas, fluted and twisted into dreamlike forms; they spring up from many-coloured floors to meet the glistening pendants of the roof: wings, ropes, curtains fine as frozen clouds; spears, banners, pinnacles of suspended palaces! Still lakes mirror them: a glimmering world looks up from dark pools covered with clear glass; cities, such as the mind of Durin could scarce have imagined in his sleep, stretch on through avenues and pillared courts, on into the dark recesses where no light can come, And plink! A silver drop falls, and the round wrinkles in the glass make all the towers bend and waver like weeds and corals in a grotto of the sea. Then evening comes:” they fade and twinkle out; the torches pass on into another chamber and another dream. There is chamber after chamber, Legolas; hall opening out of hall, dome after dome, stair beyond stair; and still the winding paths lead on into the mountains’ heart. Caves! The Caverns of Helm’s Deep! Happy was the chance that drove me there! It makes me weep to leave them.

At the lip of a cliff, I look out over Lake Superior, through the bare branches of birches and the snow-covered branches of aspens and pines. A hard wind blows snow up out of a cavern and over my face. I know this place, I know its seasons - I have hiked these mountains in the summer and walked these winding pathways in the explosion of colour that is a northern fall. And now, the temperature drops well below zero and the deadly cold lake rages below, I feel the stirrings of faith that here, in this place, in my heart, spring will come again. But first the winter must be waited out. And that waiting has worth.

The festival of the spring equinox speaks of freshness and youth, of excitement and endless possibilities. Nature begins to quicken and early flowers open to the warmth of the strengthening sun, bringing the colours of lemon and yellow into our lives on the wings of a March wind.

What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire? Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific exceeding 8000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence of its units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides: its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and commercial significance: its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe: its indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all the region below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multisecular stability of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its capacity to dissolve and hold in solution all soluble substances including millions of tons of the most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and islands, its persistent formation of homothetic islands, peninsulas and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones: its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence in seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies, freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs and latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility as paradigm and paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow, hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals, rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its potentiality derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe), numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its ubiquity as constituting 90 percent of the human body: the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon.

Everyday is brightly colored like spring when you meet the right person in life.

There are four seasons in a year: Winter, Spring, Summer and Colour!

Yet the misty spring rain softened the outline of the mountain across the river and made it even more beautiful. So gentle was the rain that they hardly knew they were getting wet as they strolled back toward the car, not even bothering to put up their umbrella. The slender threads of rain vanished into the river without a ripple. Cherry blossoms were intermingled with young green leaves, the colours of the budding trees all delicately subdued in the rain.

He drew in a breath and all the seasons were in it; spring greenness in the grass, and somewhere a dog-rose blooming; the secretive scent of fungus clinging to the oak, and underneath it all something sharper waiting in a promise of winter.

People think blood red, but blood don't got no colour. Not when blood wash the floor she lying on as she scream for that son of a bitch to come, the lone baby of 1785. Not when the baby wash in crimson and squealing like it just depart heaven to come to hell, another place of red. Not when the midwife know that the mother shed too much blood, and she who don't reach fourteen birthday yet speak curse 'pon the chile and the papa, and then she drop down dead like old horse. Not when blood spurt from the skin, on spring from the axe, the cat-o'-nine, the whip, the cane and the blackjack and every day in slave life is a day that colour red. It soon come to pass when red no different from white or blue or black or nothing. Two black legs spread wide and mother mouth screaming. A black baby wiggling in blood on the floor with skin darker than midnight but the greenest eyes anybody ever done seen. I goin' call her Lilith. You can call her what they call her.

Set a pen to a dream, and the colour drains from it. The ink with which we write seems diluted with something holding too much of reality, and we find that after all we cannot delineate the incredible memory. It is as if our inward selves, released from the bonds of daytime and objectivity, revelled in prisoned emotions which are hastily stifled when we translate them. In dreams and visions lie the greatest creations of man, for on them rests no yoke of line or hue. Forgotten scenes, and lands more obscure than the golden world of childhood, spring into the sleeping mind to reign until awakening puts them to rout.

Love is the colour of spring sunshine muted through old windows. Love has a taste, a texture - dark chocolate with pistachios; a sound - wind chimes echoing from a distant hill; a rhythm - the tango, obviously.

I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history which can be kept up only by shutting one’s eyes to the overwhelming multitude of facts, the drama of a number of mighty Cultures, each springing with primitive strength from the soil of a mother-region to which it remains firmly bound throughout it’s whole life-cycle; each stamping its material, its mankind, in its own image; each having its own idea, its own passions, its own life, will and feelings, its own death. Here indeed are colours, lights, movements, that no intellectual eye has yet discovered. Here the Cultures, peoples, languages, truths, gods, landscapes bloom and age as the oaks and the pines, the blossoms, twigs and leaves - but there is no ageing “Mankind.” Each Culture has its own new possibilities of self-expression which arise, ripen, decay and never return. There is not one sculpture, one painting, one mathematics, one physics, but many, each in the deepest essence different from the others, each limited in duration and self-contained, just as each species of plant has its peculiar blossom or fruit, its special type of growth and decline.

In Dedication. All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean - In scorn of which I sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom I desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo. It was a virtue not to stay, To go my headstrong and heroic way Seeking her out at the volcano's head, Among pack ice, or where the track had faded Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers: Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's, Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips, With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips. Green sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate the Mountain Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But I am gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence I forget cruelty and past betrayal, Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

Hence the vanity of translation; it were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower—and this is

The most thrilling day of the year, the first real day of Spring had enclosed its warm delicious beauty even to London eyes. It had put a spangle in every colour and a new tone in every voice, and city folks walked as though they carried real bodies under their clothes with real live hearts pumping the still blood through.

There is a great deal in choosing colours that go well with one's complexion. People think of that for their dresses, but not for their rooms., which are of so much more importance. I should have liked blue, but blue gets so soon tawdry. I think, (...) that I have enough complexion at present to venture upon a pale spring green.

Just fancy! One can hear and see the grass growing,' thought Levin, as he noticed wet slate-coloured aspen leaf move close to the point of a blade of grass.

There were rockets like a flock of scintillating birds singing with sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark smoke: their leaves opened like a whole spring unfolding in a moment, and their shining branches dropped glowing flowers down upon the hobbits, disappearing with a sweet scent just before their touched their upturned faces. There were fountains of butterflies that flew glittering into the trees; there were pillars of coloured fires that rose and turned into eagles, or sailing ships, or a phalanx of flying swans; there was a red thunderstorm and a shower of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that sprang suddenly into the air with a yell like an embattled army, and and came down again into the Water with a hiss like a hundred hot snakes.

But all of a sudden the scene changed; it was the memory, no longer of old impressions but of an old desire, only recently reawakened by the Fortuny gown in blue and gold, that spread before me another spring, a spring not leafy at all but on the contrary suddenly stripped of its trees and flowers by the name that I had just murmured to myself: “Venice”; a decanted springtime, which is reduced to its own essence and expresses the lengthening, the warming, the gradual unfolding of its days in the progressive fermentation, no longer, now, of an impure soil, but of a blue and virginal water, springlike without bud or blossom, which could answer the call of May only by the gleaming facets fashioned and polished by May, harmonising exactly with it in the radiant, unalterable nakedness of its dusky sapphire. Likewise, too, no more than the seasons to its flowerless creeks, do modern times bring any change to the Gothic city; I knew it, even if I could not imagine it, or rather, imagining it, this was what I longed for with the same desire which long ago, when I was a boy, in the very ardour of departure, had broken and robbed me of the strength to make the journey: to find myself face to face with my Venetian imaginings, to observe how that divided sea enclosed in its meanderings, like the sinuosities of the ocean stream, and urbane and refined civilization, but one that, isolated by their azure girdle, had evolved independently, had had its own schools of painting and architecture, to admire that fabulous garden of fruits and birds in coloured stone, flowering in the midst of the sea which kept it refreshed, lapped the base of the columns with its tide, and, like a somber azure gaze watching in the shadows, kept patches of light perpetually flickering on the bold relief of the capitals.

The morning was, therefore, a mixture of a plenitude of densities, from the presence of the placid birds, to the mundane premonition, to the spring of small glisters which accompanied that autumnal rain. The music, in a simple whistle, recreated a new universe with the parish and all the hearts that were witness to it- padre, pigeons, swallows, the world!- were clothed in a new carnivalesque colouring: a celebration from within.

When there is this simple, clear watching and listening, then there is an awareness - awareness of the colour of those flowers, red, yellow, white, of the spring leaves, the stems, so tender, so delicate, awareness of the heavens, the earth and those people who are passing by. They have been chattering along that long road, never looking at the trees, at the flowers, at the skies and the marvellous hills. They are not even aware of what is going on around them. They talk a great deal about the environment, how we must protect nature and so on, but it seems they are not aware of the beauty and the silence of the hills and the dignity of a marvellous old tree. They are not even aware of their own thoughts, their own reactions, nor are they aware of the way they walk, of their clothes. It does not mean that they are to be selfcentred in their watching, in their awareness, but just be aware.

There, below the cliffs, is a bay of sand where the rocks stand up like the fangs of wolves, and no boat or swimmer can live when the tide is breaking round them. To right and left of the bay the sea has driven arches through the cliff. The rocks are purple and rose-coloured and pale as turquoise in the sun, and on a summer’s evening when the tide is low and the sun is sinking, men see on the horizon land that comes and goes with the light. It is the Summer Isle, which (they say) floats and sinks at the will of heaven, the Island of Glass through which the clouds and stars can be seen, but which for those who dwell there is full of trees and grass and springs of sweet water . . .’ The

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn't a very good poem. I have decided my best poetry is so bad that I mustn't write any more of it. Drips from the roof are plopping into the water-butt by the back door. The view through the windows above the sink is excessively drear. Beyond the dank garden in the courtyard are the ruined walls on the edge of the moat. Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that at any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight. Unfortunately, the more my mind's eye sees green and gold, the more drained of all colour does the twilight seem. It is comforting to look away from the windows and towards the kitchen fire, near which my sister Rose is ironing - though she obviously can't see properly, and it will be a pity if she scorches her only nightgown. (I have two, but one is minus its behind.) Rose looks particularly fetching by firelight because she is a pinkish person; her skin has a pink glow and her hair is pinkish gold, very light and feathery. Although I am rather used to her I know she is a beauty. She is nearly twenty-one and very bitter with life. I am seventeen, look younger, feel older. I am no beauty but I have a neatish face. I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic - two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it. The house itself was built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted on to a fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact and a stretch of the old walls at their full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower, all that remains of an even older castle, still stands on its mound close by. But I won't attempt to describe our peculiar home fully until I can see more time ahead of me than I do now. I am writing this journal partly to practise my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel - I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious. The only time father obliged me by reading one of them, he said I combined stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny. He told me to relax and let the words flow out of me.

As soon as he had left the room and walked into the air, he knew that he would never return and for the first time his fears lifted. It was a spring morning, and when he walked into Severndale Park he felt the breeze bringing back memories of a much earlier life, and he was at peace. He sat beneath a tree and looked up at its leaves in amazement - where once he might have gazed at them and sensed there only the confusion of his own thoughts, now each leaf was so clear and distinct that he could see the lightly coloured veins which carried moisture and life. And he looked down at his own hand, which seemed translucent beside the bright grass. His head no longer ached, and as he lay upon the earth he could feel its warmth beneath him.

— If love wants you; if you’ve been melted down to stars, you will love with lungs and gills, with warm blood and cold. With feathers and scales. Under the hot gloom of the forest canopy you’ll want to breathe with the spiral calls of birds, while your lashing tail still gropes for the waes. You’ll try to haul your weight from simple sea to gravity of land. Caught by the tide, in the snail-slip of your own path, for moments suffocating in both water and air. If love wants you, suddently your past is obsolete science. Old maps, disproved theories, a diorama. The moment our bodies are set to spring open. The immanence that reassembles matter passes through us then disperses into time and place: the spasm of fur stroked upright; shocked electrons. The mother who hears her child crying upstairs and suddenly feels her dress wet with milk. Among black branches, oyster-coloured fog tongues every corner of loneliness we never knew before we were loved there, the places left fallow when we’re born, waiting for experience to find its way into us. The night crossing, on deck in the dark car. On the beach wehre night reshaped your face. In the lava fields, carbon turned to carpet, moss like velvet spread over splintered forms. The instant spray freezes in air above the falls, a gasp of ice. We rise, hearing our names called home through salmon-blue dusk, the royal moon an escutcheon on the shield of sky. The current that passes through us, radio waves, electric lick. The billions of photons that pass through film emulsion every second, the single submicroscopic crystal struck that becomes the phograph. We look and suddenly the world looks back. A jagged tube of ions pins us to the sky. — But if, like starlings, we continue to navigate by the rear-view mirror of the moon; if we continue to reach both for salt and for the sweet white nibs of grass growing closest to earth; if, in the autumn bog red with sedge we’re also driving through the canyon at night, all around us the hidden glow of limestone erased by darkness; if still we sish we’d waited for morning, we will know ourselves nowhere. Not in the mirrors of waves or in the corrading stream, not in the wavering glass of an apartment building, not in the looming light of night lobbies or on the rainy deck. Not in the autumn kitchen or in the motel where we watched meteors from our bed while your slow film, the shutter open, turned stars to rain. We will become indigestible. Afraid of choking on fur and armour, animals will refuse the divided longings in our foreing blue flesh. — In your hands, all you’ve lost, all you’ve touched. In the angle of your head, every vow and broken vow. In your skin, every time you were disregarded, every time you were received. Sundered, drowsed. A seeded field, mossy cleft, tidal pool, milky stem. The branch that’s released when the bird lifts or lands. In a summer kitchen. On a white winter morning, sunlight across the bed.

Before the swallow, before the daffodil, and not much later than the snowdrop, the common toad salutes the coming of spring after his own fashion, which is to emerge from a hole in the ground, where he has lain buried since the previous autumn, and crawl as rapidly as possible towards the nearest suitable patch of water. Something – some kind of shudder in the earth, or perhaps merely a rise of a few degrees in the temperature – has told him it is time to wake up ... At this period, after his long fast, the toad has a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of Lent. His movements are languid but purposeful, his body is shrunken, and by contrast his eyes look abnormally large. This allows one to notice, what one might not at any other time, that a toad has about the most beautiful eye of any living creature. It is like gold, or more exactly it is like the golden-coloured semi-precious stone which one sometimes sees in signet rings, and which I think is called a chrysoberyl.

I nodded, appreciating the wisdom of her words.‘Yellow is the colour of early spring,’ she said, ‘just look at your garden!’ She gestured towards the borders, which were full of primulas, crocuses and daffodils. ‘The most cheerful of colours,’ she continued, ‘almost reflective in its nature and it is of course the colour of the mind.’ ‘That’s why we surround ourselves with it!’ laughed Phyllis, ‘in the hope that its properties will rub off.’‘Nonsense dear,’ said Mrs Darley dismissively, ‘Yellow light simply encourages us to think more positively. It lifts our spirits and raises our self-esteem in time for summer.’I immediately made a mental note to surround myself with the colour of the season and, like Phyllis, hoped that some of its properties would rub off on me.

Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord, Who was the Future, died full long ago. Knowledge which is the Past is folly. Go, Poor, child, and be not to thyself abhorred. Around thine earth sun-winged winds do blow And planets roll; a meteor draws his sword; The rainbow breaks his seven-coloured chord And the long strips of river-silver flow: Awake! Give thyself to the lovely hours. Drinking their lips, catch thou the dream in flight About their fragile hairs' aerial gold. Thou art divine, thou livest,—as of old Apollo springing naked to the light, And all his island shivered into flowers.

It's a beautifully beautiful day. A moment to reflect on the beautiful truth that a heart is like a garden. With Roses of Happiness, there would be thorns of pain, with Sunflowers of Joy, there would be weeds of dismay, with colours of Sunshine there would be covers of cloud, after all that's what makes a beautiful garden, a garden that thrives and breathes in all seasons with every hue of Life, every emotion that makes our heart alive in tears and smiles, feeling all the numbness of Life yet warming up to the possibility of a new day as the fallen leaves make way for the new ones, as the bee hums along a bud to see a blossoming rose no matter the thorns, no matter the waves of Life. It is a beautifully beautiful day, and I am happy to be alive. Alive to the possibility of a new day, a tomorrow where a whole new garden of new experiences awaits. To the Hope of Spring. Love & Light, always - Debatrayee

For myself, I have no aim. I have no ambition. I will let myself be carried on by the general impulse. The surface of my mind slips along like a pale-grey stream reflecting what passes. I cannot remember my past, my nose, or the colour of my eyes, or what my general opinion of myself is. Only in moments of emergency, at a crossing, at a kerb, the wish to preserve my body springs out and seizes me and stops me, here, before this omnibus. We insist, it seems, on living. Then again, indifference descends. The roar of the traffic, the passage of undifferentiated faces, this way and that way, drugs me into dreams; rubs the features from faces. People might walk through me. And, what is this moment of time, this particular day in which I have found myself caught? The growl of traffic might be any uproar – forest trees or the roar of wild beasts. Time has whizzed back an inch or two on its reel; our short progress has been cancelled. I think also that our bodies are in truth naked. We are only lightly covered with buttoned cloth; and beneath these pavements are shells, bones and silence.

No one, not a soul, intimidating stillness. Uncannily, though, in the midst of all this, a fire is blazing, lit, in fact,with petrol. It's flickering, a ghostly fire, wind. On the orange-coloured plain below I can see sheets of rain, and the annunciation of the end of the world is glowing on the horizon, glimmering there. A train races through the land and penetrates the mountain range. Its wheels are glowing. One car erupts in flames. The train stops, men try to extinguish it, but the car can no longer be extinguished. They decide to move on, to hasten, to race. The train moves, it moves into fathomless space, unwavering. In the pitch-blackness of the universe the wheels are glowing, the lone car is glowing, Unimaginable stellar catastrophes take place, entire worlds collapse into a single point. Light can no longer escape, even the profoundest blackness would seem like light and the silence would seem like thunder. The universe is filled with Nothing, it is the Yawning Black Void. Systems of Milky Ways have condensed into Un-stars. Utter blissfulness is spreading, and out of utter blissfulness now springs the Absurdity. This is the situation.

When I spoke of his life, I thought nothing about here or there, now or then. You will see what I mean if you think how the light came back to his eye and the colour to his cheek the moment he had made up his mind to do what had long seemed his duty. When I saw him again that light was still in his eyes, and a feeble hope looked out of every feature. Existence, from a demon-haunted vapor, had begun to change to a morning of spring; life, the life of conscious well-being, of law and order and peace, had begun to dawn in obedience and self-renunciation; his resurrection was at hand. But you then, and now you and Mr. Bascombe, would stop this resurrection; you would seat yourselves upon his gravestone to keep him down!—And why?—Lest he, lest you, lest your family should be disgraced by letting him out of his grave to tell the truth.

Now my five senses gather into a meaning all acts, all presences; and as a lily gathers the elements together, in me this dark and shining, that stillness and that moving, these shapes that spring from nothing, become a rhythm that dances, a pure design. While I'm in my five senses they send me spinning all sounds and silences, all shape and colour as thread for that weaver, whose web within me growing follows beyond my knowing some pattern sprung from nothing- a rhythm that dances and is not mine.

We asked him what colour he called it, and he said he didn’t know. He didn’t think there was a name for the colour. The man had told him it was an Oriental design. George put it on, and asked us what we thought of it. Harris said that, as an object to hang over a flower-bed in early spring to frighten the birds away, he should respect it; but that, considered as an article of dress for any human being, except a Margate nigger, it made him ill. George got quite huffy; but, as Harris said, if he didn’t want his opinion, why did he ask for it?

You don't chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as many big words. What has come over you?" Anne coloured and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked dreamily out of the window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine. "I don't know—I don't want to talk as much," she said, denting her chin thoughtfully with her fore-finger. "It's nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to have them laughed at or wondered over.

Spring Every time, in the same way, the world molds flower buds of yellow mustard from a lump of gold, and the breeze holds them in its undulations. Every time, in the same way, branches laden with sprouting leaves, hug the interweaving pathways. What do they think? Who knows. Every time, in the same way, raindrops filtering through clouds brimming with colour come to rattle against the copper sheet that spreads into the distance. Every year, a season, just like this, every time, this scent of absence, every morning, these harsh tears. When will the times of mourning come? Majeed Amjad

There it lay in the early sunshine of spring. It looked a town rather than a house, but a town built, not hither and thither, as this man wished or that, but circumspectly, by a single architect with one idea in his head. Courts and buildings, grey, red, plum colour, lay orderly and symmetrical; the courts were some of them oblong and some square; in this was a fountain; in that a statue; the buildings were some of them low, some pointed; here was a chapel, there a belfry; spaces of the greenest grass lay in between and clumps of cedar trees and beds of bright flowers; all were clasped — yet so well set out was it that it seemed that every part had room to spread itself fittingly — by the roll of a massive wall; while smoke from innumerable chimneys curled perpetually into the air. This vast, yet ordered building, which could house a thousand men and perhaps two thousand horses, was built, Orlando thought, by workmen whose names are unknown. Here have lived, for more centuries than I can count, the obscure generations of my own obscure family. Not one of these Richards, Johns, Annes, Elizabeths has left a token of himself behind him, yet all, working together with their spades and their needles, their love-making and their child-bearing, have left this. Never had the house looked more noble and humane.

Go get her,' Amren hissed. 'Right now.' 'No,' I said, and hated the word. They gaped at me, and I wanted to roar at the sight of the blood coating them, at my unconscious and suffering brothers on the carpet before them. But I managed to say to my cousin, 'Weren't you listening to what Feyre said to him? She promised to destroy him- from within.' Mor's face paled, her magic flaring on Azriel's chest. 'She's going into that house to take him down. To take them all down.' I nodded. 'She is now a spy- with a direct line t me. What the King of Hybern does, where he goes, what his plans are, she will know. And report back.' Far between us, faint and soft, hidden so none might find it... between us lay a whisper of colour, and joy, of light and shadow- a whisper of her. Our bond. 'She's your mate,' Amren bit at me. 'Not your spy. Go get her.' 'She is my mate. And my spy,' I said too quietly. 'And she is the High Lady of the Night Court.' 'What?' Mor whispered. I caressed a mental finger down that bond now hidden deep, deep within us, and said, 'If they had removed her other glove, they would have seen a second tattoo on her right arm. The twin to the other. Inked last night, when we crept out, found a priestess, and I swore her in as my High Lady.' 'Not- not consort,' Amren blurted, blinking. I hadn't seen her surprised in... centuries. 'Not consort, not wife. Feyre is High Lady of the Night Court.' My equal in every way; she would wear my crown, sit on a throne beside mine. Never sidelined, never deigned to breeding and parties and child-rearing. My queen. As if in answer, a glimmer of love shuddered down the bond. I clamped down on the relief that threatened to shatter any calm I feigned having. 'You mean to tell me,' Mor breathed, 'that my High Lady is now surrounded by enemies?' A lethal sort of calm crept over her tear-stained face. 'I mean to tell you,' I said, watching the blood clot on Cassian's wings with Amren's tending. Beneath Mor's own hands. Azriel's bleeding at least eased. Enough to keep them alive until the healer got here. 'I mean to tell you,' I said again, my power building and rubbing itself against my skin, my bones, desperate to be unleashed upon the world, 'that your High Lady made a sacrifice for her court- and we will move when the time is right.' Perhaps Lucien being Elain's mate would help- somehow, I'd find a way. And then I'd assist my mate in ripping the Spring Court, Ianthe, those mortal queens, and the King of Hybern to shreds. Slowly. 'Until then?' Amren demanded. 'What of the Cauldron- of the book?' 'Until then,' I said, staring toward the door as if I might see her walk through it, laughing and vibrant and beautiful, 'we got to war.

Finally, I have come to realise that an imperfect Life is actually the most perfect Life. I have come to see how Life is beautiful in all its colours, more so because the shades of grey bind them and paint them with even more radiance. A clear sky is always beautiful but what if we never have rain or storm? Sunshine is always wonderful but what if we never have the soothing dusk or the cold night to coil in our own misty self? Storms that come to jolt us often leave us with more courage as we sail along the gust to chase a silver lining. The scorching heat that chokes us often makes us wait more eagerly for that balm of rain. So is Life, in all those moments of sunset we have the hope of the following sunrise, and if we may wait and absorb all that crumbling ray of that sunset we would be able to paint our sunrise with even more crimson smile. Because just like a story, nothing in Life is really concrete without patience. We cannot skip pages of a book because each line contains just so much to seep in, and to have the story fully lived inside our heart and soul we have to keep reading until the very end to feel that sense of peaceful happiness, that always clutches us no matter how the ending is drafted. In the same manner, we have to keep walking through Life, as each and every step of ours leads us to the destination of our Life, the destination of peace, the destination of knowledge of self. The best part of this walk is that it is never a straight line, but is always filled with curves and turns, making us aware of our spirit, laughing loud at times while mourning deep at times. But that is what Life is all about, a bunch of imperfect moments to smile as perfect memories sailing through the potholes of Life, because a straight line even in the world of science means death, after all monotony of perfection is the most cold imperfection. So as we walk through difficult times, may we realise that this sunset is not forever's and that the winter often makes us more aware of the spring. As we drive through a dark night, may we halt for a moment and watch for the stars, the smile of the very stars of gratitude and love that is always there even in the darkest sky of the gloomiest night. As we sail along the ship of Life, may we remember that the winds often guide us to our destination and the storms only come to make our voyage even more adventurous, while the rain clears the cloud so that we may gaze at the full glory of the sky above, with a perfect smile through a voyage of imperfect moments of forever's shine. And so as we keep turning the pages of Life, may we remember to wear that Smile, through every leaf of Life, for Life is rooted in the blooming foliage of its imperfect perfection.

Do not be dilatory in action, muddled in communication, or vague in thought. Don't let your mind settle into depression or elation. Allow some leisure in your life. 'They kill, they cut in pieces, they hunt with curses.' What relevance has this to keeping your mind pure, sane, sober, just? As if a man were to come up to a spring of clear, sweet water and curse it- it would still continue to bubble up water good to drink. He could throw in mud or dung: in no time the spring will break it down, wash it away, and take no colour from it. How then can you secure an everlasting spring and not a cistern? By keeping yourself at all times intent on freedom- and staying kind, simple and decent. p81

There we were last summer, having a picnic in a sylvan setting. Birds were singing, the atmosphere was full of soft colours; there were children in gay cotton frocks, their laughter filled the air. Elders sat in a kind of Elysian abstraction. I remember it so well. I remember a certain old lady who sat with her back against a tree, her profile to me. I sat desultorily conversing but gazing at that face which was gazing at her grandchildren. And there came to me out of that old face the face of the young woman she had been. I saw that she had been beautiful, bright and humorous - and it was all there still as she watched her grandchildren. Old age was merely a veil which a moment of vision could snatch off.

The starkness of winter can reveal colours we would otherwise miss. I once watched a fox cross a frosty field, her coat shining against the gloom. Walking in the bare winter woodland, I am surrounded by astonishing foxy reds: the deep burnish of bracken, it’s dry fronds twisted to lacework; the deep crimson leaves left on brambles; the last remaining berries on honeysuckle and orange clusters of rose hips. The iconic holly, it’s boughs so thoroughly raided each Christmas. There is the bright yellow of gorse on heathland, going on until spring comes, as well as stately evergreens and the tangle of green leaves that remain unnoticed on the ground. Life goes on abundantly in winter – changes made here will usher us into future glories.

After Mum finished her seventh day of work, she returned home, and, like some strange magician, pulled out from the breast of her coat a beautiful bunch of wildflowers. Where had she got them? I wondered. I remember I cupped the wild bouquet in my hands and marched outside, scanning the landscape in all directions for any sign of where they might've come from. Wide-open emptiness stretched out before me. Dry and unwelcoming. And yet... in my palm I held moist, healthy, vigorous life. How? The answer was not forthcoming, so I returned inside, found an empty bottle of spring water, filled it once more and placed the flowers in it. They were the only source of colour in our tattered, underground home. Three days later and still the flowers endured. Their life hung on.

Beyond doubt, I am a splendid fellow. In the autumn, winter and spring, I execute the duties of a student of divinity; in the summer I disguise myself in my skin and become a lifeguard. My slightly narrow and gingerly hirsute but not necessarily unmanly chest becomes brown. My smooth back turns the colour of caramel, which, in conjunction with the whipped cream of my white pith helmet, gives me, some of my teenage satellites assure me, a delightfully edible appearance. My legs, which I myself can study, cocked as they are before me while I repose on my elevated wooden throne, are dyed a lustreless maple walnut that accentuates their articulate strength. Correspondingly, the hairs of my body are bleached blond, so that my legs have the pointed elegance of, within the flower, umber anthers dusted with pollen.

The first thing I noticed was the clarity of the air, and then the sharp green colour of the land. There was no softness anywhere. The distant hills did not blend into the sky but stood out like rocks, so close that I could almost touch them, their proximity giving me that shock of surprise and wonder which a child feels looking for the first time through a telescope. Nearer to me, too, each object had the same hard quality, the very grass turning to single blades, springing from a younger, harsher soil than the soil I knew. I had expected - if I had expected anything - a transformation of another kind: a tranquil sense of wellbeing, the blurred intoxication of a dream, with everything about me misty, illdefined; not this tremendous impact, a reality more vivid than anything hitherto experienced, sleeping or awake,

When, the next morning, Tito put this determination into act he had chosen his colour in the game, and had given an inevitable bent to his wishes. He had made it impossible that he should not from henceforth desire it to be the truth that his father was dead; impossible that he should not be tempted to baseness rather than that the precise facts of his conduct should not remain for ever concealed. Under every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of guilty wishes, whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished by the darkness. The contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than in the consequent adjustment of our desires—the enlistment of our self-interest on the side of falsity; as, on the other hand, the purifying influence of public confession springs from the fact, that by it the hope in lies is for ever swept away, and the soul recovers the noble attitude of simplicity.

I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres no God I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why dont they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because theyre afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow

Sorry,’ said Harry nervously. ‘I – I didn’t know the time had been changed.’ ‘That is not the Wizengamot’s fault,’ said the voice. ‘An owl was sent to you this morning. Take your seat.’ Harry dropped his gaze to the chair in the centre of the room, the arms of which were covered in chains. He had seen those chains spring to life and bind whoever sat between them. His footsteps echoed loudly as he walked across the stone floor. When he sat gingerly on the edge of the chair the chains clinked threateningly, but did not bind him. Feeling rather sick, he looked up at the people seated at the bench above. There were about fifty of them, all, as far as he could see, wearing plum-coloured robes with an elaborately worked silver ‘W’ on the left-hand side of the chest and all staring down their noses at him, some with very austere expressions, others looks of frank curiosity. In the very middle of the front row sat Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic. Fudge was a portly man who often sported a lime-green bowler hat, though today he had dispensed with it; he had dispensed, too, with

But poetry is an affair of the spirit and people who imagine that they are going to turn themselves into great poets by an inordinate admiration of beautiful material things or beautiful people are fostering the most puerile of delusions. It follows that when I talk of the preoccupation with beauty as being absolutely necessary to the poet, I mean spiritual beauty and nothing else. The reason of this is that ethical beauty is at the back of all beauty. Beautiful forms, beautiful sounds, beautiful colours, beautiful faces are simply the channels by which spiritual perfection is suggested to our spirit, and the resulting yearning, the desperate struggle upwards of the soul towards the Supreme Beauty, however dimly and darkly 120 felt, is what produces all great art whether in poetry or in music, or in sculpture, or in painting. That is why all really great Art is founded on and springs from morality. Beauty in the sphere of the spirit is simply goodness in a greater or less degree. The difference between the highest Art and “ Art for Art’s sake ” corresponds to the difference between Philosophy and Sophistry.

It was delicious in the garden. The storm had passed over long since, and it was still and warm; the sweetness of the stocks and roses filled the air with the peculiar intensity of fragrance of flowers after rain - in the evening light they had the unnatural shadowy vividness of a coloured photograph. The rain had stirred up the nightingales too - near and far, their bubbling ecstasy welled out from the dark shelter of ilexes and cypresses, and through the open windows of the villa there came presently the cool elusive sequences of Debussy's music - ghosts of melody rather than melodies, evocations rather than statements; gleams on water and pale lights in spring skies, a single star, slow waves beating in mist on a deserted shore. Grace leant back in the corner of her seat, listening, watching the leaves of the buckthorns, like little curved pencils, against the sky above her head; in the relaxation of fatigue her attention was fixed on nothing, but some part of her was profoundly aware of all these things - the scent of the flowers, the song of the nightingales, the cool western music, with its memories of her own Atlantic shores.

The painting was a lie. A bright, pretty lie, bursting with pale pink blooms and fat beams of sunshine. I'd begun it yesterday, an idle study of the rose garden lurking beyond the open windows of the studio. Through the tangle of thorns and satiny leaves, the brighter greens of the hills rolled away into the distance. Incessant, unrelenting spring. If I'd painted this glimpse into the court the way my gut had urged me, it would have been flesh-shredding thorns, flowers that choked off the sunlight for any plants smaller than them, and rolling hills stained red. But each brushstroke on the wide canvas was calculated; each dab and swirl of blending colours meant to portray not just idyllic spring, but a sunny disposition as well. Not too happy, but gladly, finally healing from horrors I'd carefully divulged. I supposed that in the past weeks, I had crafted my demeanour as intricately as one of those paintings. I supposed that if I had also chosen to show myself as I truly wished, I would have adorned with flesh shredding talons, and hands that choked the life out of those now in my company. I would have left the gilded halls stained red.

Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign, with a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march. Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father's worth reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, first shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray with foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, and laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, untended, will the she-goats then bring home their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die, die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far and wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon as thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame, and of thy father's deeds, and inly learn what virtue is, the plain by slow degrees with waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, fom the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, and stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, her hero-freight a second Argo bear; new wars too shall arise, and once again some great Achilles to some Troy be sent. Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man, no more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark ply traffic on the sea, but every land shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook; the sturdy ploughman shall loose yoke from steer, nor wool with varying colours learn to lie; but in the meadows shall the ram himself, now with soft flush of purple, now with tint of yellow saffron, teach his fleece to shine. While clothed in natural scarlet graze the lambs.

All the long afternoon, the sea was suspended there before their eyes only as a canvas of attractive colouring might hang on the wall of a wealthy bachelor’s flat and it was only in the intervals between the ‘hands’ that one of the players, finding nothing better to do, raised his eyes to it to seek from it some indication of the weather or the time, and to remind the others that tea was ready. And at night they did not dine in the hotel, where, hidden springs of electricity flooding the great dining-room with light, it became as it were an immense and wonderful aquarium against whose wall of glass the working population of Balbec, the fishermen and also the tradesmen’s families, clustering invisibly in the outer darkness, pressed their faces to watch, gently floating upon the golden eddies within, the luxurious life of its occupants, a thing as extraordinary to the poor as the life of strange fishes or molluscs (an important social question, this: whether the wall of glass will always protect the wonderful creatures at their feasting, whether the obscure folk who watch them hungrily out of the night will not break in some day to gather them from their aquarium and devour them).

Della & I are drunk at the top of Mont-Royal. We have an open blue plastic thermos of red wine at our feet. It's the first day of spring & it's midnight & we've been peeling off layers of winter all day. We stand facing each other, as if to exchange vows, chests heaving from racing up & down the mountain to the sky. My face is hurting from smiling so much, aching at the edges of my words. She reaches out to hold my face in her hands, dirty palms form a bowl to rest my chin. I’m standing on a tree stump so we’re eye to eye. It’s hard to stay steady. I worry I may start to drool or laugh, I feel so unhinged from my body. It’s been one of those days I don’t want to end. Our goal was to shirk all responsibility merely to enjoy the lack of everyday obligations, to create fullness & purpose out of each other. Our knees are the colour of the ground-in grass. Our boots are caked in mud caskets. Under our nails is a mixture of minerals & organic matter, knuckles scraped by tree bark. We are the thaw embodied. She says, You have changed me, Eve, you are the single most important person in my life. If you were to leave me, I would die. At that moment, our breath circling from my lungs & into hers, I am changed. Perhaps before this I could describe our relationship as an experiment, a happy accident, but this was irrefutable. I was completely consumed & consuming. It was as though we created some sort of object between us that we could see & almost hold. I would risk everything I’ve ever known to know only this. I wanted to honour her in a way that was understandable to every part of me. It was as though I could distill the meaning of us into something I could pour into a porcelain cup. Our bodies on top of this city, rulers of love. Originally, we were celebrating the fact that I got into Concordia’s visual arts program. But the congratulatory brunch she took me to at Café Santropol had turned into wine, which had turned into a day for declarations. I had a sense of spring in my body, that this season would meld into summer like a running-jump movie kiss. There would be days & days like this. XXXX gone away on a sojurn I didn’t care to note the details of, she simply ceased to be. Summer in Montreal in love is almost too much emotion to hold in an open mouth, it spills over, it causes me to not need any sleep. I don’t think I will ever feel as awake as I did in the summer of 1995.

There it lay in the early sunshine of spring. It looked a town rather than a house, but a town built, not hither and thither, as this man wished or that, but circumspectly, by a single architect with one idea in his head. Courts and buildings, grey, red, plum colour, lay orderly and symmetrical; the courts were some of them oblong and some square; in this was a fountain; in that a statue; the buildings were some of them low, some pointed; here was a chapel, there a belfry; spaces of the greenest grass lay in between and clumps of cedar trees and beds of bright flowers; all were clasped — yet so well set out was it that it seemed that every part had room to spread itself fittingly — by the roll of a massive wall; while smoke from innumerable chimneys curled perpetually into the air. This vast, yet ordered building, which could house a thousand men and perhaps two thousand horses, was built, Orlando thought, by workmen whose names are unknown. Here have lived, for more centuries than I can count, the obscure generations of my own obscure family. Not one of these Richards, Johns, Annes, Elizabeths has left a token of himself behind him, yet all, working together with their spades and their needles, their love-making and their child-bearing, have left this. Never had the house looked more noble and humane.

Sometimes the path that leads to finding your very own self leads across the heart of another person. And when the time has come, you have to let him go, because some people are your preterite. Don't indulge yourself in reminiscences of the past. There's always a reason why things happen the way they do. And if something old is dying, something new will be born. The present is the only thing that matters. It's the only thing that really exists. The past shouldn't be a part of it. It belongs to us, as all the things that we have experienced, suffered, learned, but it should never affect our present. The only thing we can form is what is present. And this present is the most valuable property we own. And we must make use of this present. We must cherish it. And I fill my present with dreams of fairytale castles and walks in the sun that is getting warmer on every new day. I fill it with dreams of glances onto the lavish splendour of rose-coloured spring and summer blossoms, of new poetry and new songs, of melodies in my heart and kindred souls, of new colours on my skin and flights through strange yet familiar worlds and the ever anew and ever perpetuating abundance and magic of life. Because the tragedy in life is never tragic as a whole. It grants us the chance to be more than what we have been before.

Cups and Rings and Drawings. I stopped by a famed park, Picked a blank sheet And drew a cup. For me, it represented me holding myself up in a storm, It represented the start of life, Something to pour out every lesson learnt Out of every misfortune we’ve ever been. The cup — the container to hold chocolate drink Water. Wine and strawberries. I drew a ring, A marriage between blessing and joy The bloom of flowers in spring The sprouting of leaves in midsummer And the smell of fresh grasses at night. I drew Monalisa I painted art I became Michaelangelo Da Vinci I became the Renaissance I healed through art “Don’t you know that you are gods?” So the first day, I cleared the storms out of my life. The second day, I dried all my tears The third day, I reinvented myself. The fourth day, I finally remembered what it felt like to be happy Like two children drawing arts on a canvass. Delilah & Annabelle Arts curled out of girls trying to reinvent the world Or the colours of the rainbow. The fifth day, I opened the windows wide To let the lights shine in. “When I’m down on my knees you’re how I pray.” The sixth day I created my favourite masterpiece — Baroque. The seventh day, I admired myself in the mirror. I missed me I missed the time I had so much optimism I miss you And I miss writing so innocently.

standstill in one of the stations which came before Balbec-Plage, stations the mere names of which (Incarville, Marcouville, Doville, Pont-a-Couleuvre, Arambouville, Saint-Mars-le-Vieux, Hermonville, Maineville) seemed to me outlandish, whereas if I had come upon them in a book I should at once have been struck by their affinity to the names of certain places in the neighbourhood of Combray. But to the trained ear two musical airs, consisting each of so many notes, several of which are common to them both, will present no similarity whatever if they differ in the colour of their harmony and orchestration. So it was that nothing could have reminded me less than these dreary names, made up of sand, of space too airy and empty and of salt, out of which the termination ‘ville’ always escaped, as the ‘fly’ seems to spring out from the end of the word ‘butterfly’—nothing could have reminded me less of those other names, Roussainville or Martinville, which, because I had heard them pronounced so often by my great-aunt at table, in the dining-room, had acquired a certain sombre charm in which were blended perhaps extracts of the flavour of ‘preserves,’ the smell of the fire of logs and of the pages of one of Bergotte’s books, the colour of the stony front of the house opposite, all of which things still to-day when they rise like a gaseous bubble from the depths of my memory preserve their own specific virtue through all the successive layers of rival interests which must be traversed before they reach the surface

Why Roses are Red......      (a poem on a little artist girl, who lived with her mother on a remote Hill)    A little girl painted...  with the brush of imagination...  and with the colours borrowed from Spring...  on the paper of time  a picture  a picture of a tiny glittering star  and gave it the name... innocence    next hour  with the brush of imagination  with artificial colours  she painted... a picture  a picture of sharp edged knife  and gave it the name... experience    she picked both the pictures  and hung them on a rope  in the middle of her rose garden  And left the garden to attend her ailing mother    As the wind of fate blew  and the element of chance entered  from the door of cruelty  the knife attacked the tiny star  and the innocent star bled, bled, and bled    the drops of blood fell on...fell on...and fell on...  the roses beneath  And....................  the roses turned red    when little girl came back  she looked ,looked and looked...  at both...  the tiny star and the red roses    Benumbed and shocked  she dressed the little, the beautiful star  and threw it high in the sky  and it got fixed there  and it gave direction to humanity  and we call it pole star    with anger she threw the picture of knife  down the hill...  and there was...                          strife,                          conspiracy                          violence                         murders                          and revolts                          in the plains    Today when I look at  red roses in someone's hands  they remind me of the....    Two ideas of a single artist  which gave the world  direction and destruction           The

If I walk along a shore towards a ship which has run aground, and the funnel or masts merge into the forest bordering on the sand dune, there will be a moment when these details suddenly become part of the ship, and indissolubly fused with it. As I approached, I did not perceive resemblances or proximities which finally came together to form a continuous picture of the upper part of the ship. I merely felt that the look of the object was on the point of altering, that something was imminent in this tension, as a storm is imminent in storm clouds. Suddenly the sight before me was recast in a manner satisfying to my vague expectation. Only afterwards did I recognize, as justifications for the change, the resemblance and contiguity of what I call ‘stimuli’— namely the most determinate phenomena, seen at close quarters and with which I compose the ‘true’ world. ‘How could I have failed to see that these pieces of wood were an integral part of the ship? For they were of the same colour as the ship, and fitted well enough into its superstructure.’ But these reasons for correct perception were not given as reasons beforehand. The unity of the object is based on the foreshadowing of an imminent order which is about to spring upon us a reply to questions merely latent in the landscape. It solves a problem set only in the form of a vague feeling of uneasiness, it organizes elements which up to that moment did not belong to the same universe and which, for that reason, as Kant said with profound insight, could not be associated. By placing them on the same footing, that of the unique object, synopsis makes continuity and resemblance between them possible. An impression can never by itself be associated with another impression.

Each year before the first rain after the harvest in Spring, I would look at the dry peach tree that I know so well at our backyard and anticipating that in summer it will be covered in an overgrown hedge unless my father who was a committed gardner of note take a weekend off from Jo'burg during the pruning season to prune it. Even now, I still remember with crystal clarity my childhood mood - warm days in Schoonoord with rich nostalgia of green scenery and flowers flowering everywhere.  One evening I was sitting at the veranda of our firehut looking at the orange tree between the plat (flat - roofed) house and the big L - shaped house - the tree served as a shelter from the sun for the drinking water pot next to the plat house - suddenly the weather changed, the wind howled, the tree swayed, the loose corrugated iron sheets on roof of he house clattered and clanged, the open windows shuts with a bang and the sky made night a day, and I was overwhelmed with that feeling of childhood joy at the approaching rain. All of a sudden, the deafening of steady pouring rain. The raging storm beat the orange tree leaves while I sat there remembering that where the orange tree stood used to be our first house, a small triangular   shaped mokhukhu ((tin house) made of red painted corrugated iron sheets salvaged from demolishing site in Witbank, also remembering that my aunt's mokhukhu was also made of the same type and colour of corrugated iron sheets. The ashen ground drunk merily until it was quenched and the floods started rolling down Leolo Mountains, and what one could hear above the deafening steady pouring rain was the bellowing of the nearby Manyane Dale, and if it was daylight one could have seen the noble Sebilwane River rolling in sullen glide. After about fifteen minutes of steady downpour, and rumbling sounds, the storm went away in a series of small, badly lit battle scenes.

It is easy for the student to feel that with all his labour he is collecting only a few leaves, many of them now torn or decayed, from the countless foliage of the Tree of Tales, with which the Forest of Days is carpeted. It seems vain to add to the litter. Who can design a new leaf? The patterns from bud to unfolding, and the colours from spring to autumn were all discovered by men long ago. But that is not true. The seed of the tree can be replanted in almost any soil, even in one so smoke-ridden (as Lang said) as that of England. Spring is, of course, not really less beautiful because we have seen or heard of other like events: like events, never from world's beginning to world's end the same event. Each leaf, of oak and ash and thorn, is a unique embodiment of the pattern, and for some this very year may be the embodiment, the first ever seen and recognized, though oaks have put forth leaves for countless generations of men. We do not, or need not, despair of drawing because all lines must be either curved or straight, nor of painting because there are only three 'primary' colours. We may indeed be older now, in so far as we are heirs in enjoyment or in practice of many generations of ancestors in the arts. In this inheritance of wealth there may be a danger of boredom or of anxiety to be original, and that may lead to a distaste for fine drawing, delicate pattern, and 'pretty' colours, or else to mere manipulation and over-elaboration of old material, clever and heartless. But the true road of escape from such weariness is not to be found in the willfully awkward, clumsy, or misshapen, not in making all things dark or unremittingly violent; nor in the mixing of colours on through subtlety to drabness, and the fantastical complication of shapes to the point of silliness and on towards delirium. Before we reach such states we need recovery. We should look at green again, and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep, and dogs, and horses – and wolves. This recovery fairy-stories help us to make. In that sense only a taste for them may make us, or keep us, childish.

Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung has come and gone, and the majestic roll of circling centuries begins anew: justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign, with a new breed of men sent down from heaven. Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom the iron shall cease, the golden race arise, befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, this glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin, and the months enter on their mighty march. Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain of our old wickedness, once done away, shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear. He shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling, and himself be seen of them, and with his father's worth reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, first shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray with foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, and laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, untended, will the she-goats then bring home their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die, die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far and wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon as thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame, and of thy father's deeds, and inly learn what virtue is, the plain by slow degrees with waving corn-crops shall to golden grow, fom the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape, and stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships, gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth. Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be, her hero-freight a second Argo bear; new wars too shall arise, and once again some great Achilles to some Troy be sent. Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man, no more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark ply traffic on the sea, but every land shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook; the sturdy ploughman shall loose yoke from steer, nor wool with varying colours learn to lie; but in the meadows shall the ram himself, now with soft flush of purple, now with tint of yellow saffron, teach his fleece to shine.

I need only, to make them reappear, pronounce the names Balbec, Venice, Florence, within whose syllables had gradually accumulated the longing inspired in me by the places for which they stood. Even in spring, to come upon the name Balbec in a book sufficed to awaken in me the desire for storms at sea and for Norman Gothic; even on a stormy day the name Florence or Venice would awaken the desire for sunshine, for lilies, for the Palace of the Doges and for Santa Maria del Fiore. But if these names thus permanently absorbed the image I had formed of these towns, it was only by transforming that image, by subordinating its reappearance in me to their own special laws; and in consequence of this they made it more beautiful, but at the same time more different from anything that the towns of Normandy or Tuscany could in reality be, and, by increasing the arbitrary delights of my imagination, aggravated the disenchantment that was in store for me when I set out upon my travels. They magnified the idea that I had formed of certain places on the surface of the globe, making them more special and in consequence more real. I did not then represent to myself cities, landscapes, historical monuments, as more or less attractive pictures, cut out here and there of a substance that was common to them all, but looked on each of them as on an unknown thing, different in essence from all the rest, a thing for which my soul thirsted and which it would profit from knowing. How much more individual still was the character they assumed from being designated by names, names that were for themselves alone, proper names such as people have! Words present to us a little picture of things, clear and familiar, like the pictures hung on the walls of schoolrooms to give children an illustration of what is meant by a carpenter's bench, a bird, an anthill, things chosen as typical of everything else of the same sort. But names present to us— of persons, and of towns which they accustom us to regard as individual, as unique, like persons— a confused picture, which draws from them, from the brightness or darkness of their tone, the colour in which it is uniformly painted, like one of those posters, entirely blue or entirely red, in which, on account of the limitations imposed by the process used in their reproduction or by a whim on the designer's part, not only the sky and the sea are blue or red, but the ships and the church and the people in the streets.

THE RETURN OF THE GODS Like a white bird upon the wind, the sail of the boat of Manannan mac Lir (Pronounced Mananarn mak Leer), the Son of the Sea, flew across the sparkling waves filled with the breeze that blew Westward to the Islands of the Blessed. The Sun Goddess above him smiled down with warmth upon her friend. The fish in the ocean danced for him beneath the turquoise water; the porpoises leapt above the waves to greet him. Upon the wind was a smell of sweetness, the smell of apple blossom in the Spring of the morning of the world. And in the prow of the boat sat Lugh (Pronounced Loo) the long-armed; strumming on his harp, he sang the Song of Creation. And as they drew closer to the green hills of Ireland, the holy land of Ireland, the Shee came out of their earth-barrow homes and danced for joy beneath the Sun. For hidden in a crane-skin sack at the bottom of the boat was the Holy Cup of Blessedness. Long had been her journeying through lands strange and far. And all who drank of that Cup, dreamed the dreams of holy truth, and drank of the Wine of everlasting life. And deep within the woods, in a green-clad clearing, where the purple anemone and the white campion bloomed, where primroses still lingered on the shadowed Northern side, a great stag lifted up his antlered head and sniffed the morning. His antlers seven-forked spoke of mighty battles fought and won, red was his coat, the colour of fire, and he trotted out of his greenwood home, hearing on the wind the song of Lugh. And in her deep barrow home, the green clad Goddess of Erin, remembered the tongue that she had forgotten. She remembered the secrets of the weaving of spells, She remembered the tides of woman and the ebb and flow of wave and Moon. She remembered the people who had turned to other Gods and coming out of her barrow of sleep, her sweet voice echoed the verses of Lugh and the chorus of Manannan. And the great stag of the morning came across the fields to her and where had stood the Goddess now stood a white hind. And the love of the God was returned by the Goddess and the larks of Anghus mac Og hovering above the field echoed with ecstasy the Song of Creation. And in the villages and towns the people came out of their houses, hearing the sweet singing and seeking its source. And children danced in the streets with delight. And they went down to the shore, the Eastern shore, where rises the Sun of the Morning, and awaited the coming of Manannan and Lugh, the mast of their boat shining gold in the Sun. The sea had spoken, the Eastern dawn had given up her secret, the Gods were returning, the Old Ones awakening, joy was returning unto the sleeping land.  

anticipated this trend in the 1950s, when it used Jackson Pollock’s action paintings as the backdrop for a fashion shoot for its spring collection. For Indiana the experience was a salutary one. The wordage he utilised in his paintings had always been carefully chosen and carried great emotional resonance, much of it directly autobiographical. He was not a neutralist. He was not attempting to transform the word ‘love’ into a slogan or logo, but that’s what happened anyway, and the effect it had on his reputation as an artist was considerable. Because of the commercial proliferation of the LOVE

anticipated this trend in the 1950s, when it used Jackson Pollock’s action paintings as the backdrop for a fashion shoot for its spring collection. For Indiana the experience was a salutary one. The wordage he utilised in his paintings had always been carefully chosen and carried great emotional resonance, much of it directly autobiographical. He was not a neutralist. He was not attempting to transform the word ‘love’ into a slogan or logo, but that’s what happened anyway, and the effect it had on his reputation as an artist was considerable.

You cannot have too many aconites. They cost, as I said before, about fifty shillings a thousand. A thousand will make a brave splash of colour, which lasts a month. If you can afford ten thousand, you are mad not to buy them. There are so many exciting places you can put them. . . in the hollow of a felled tree, by the border of a pond, in a circle round a statue, or immediately under your window, so that you can press your nose against the glass, when it is too cold to go out, and stare at them, and remember that spring is on its way.

Spring weather is turbulent. Every afternoon for a fortnight a gang of bruise-coloured clouds grumbling with their brew slunk up to the massy black stone of the tor. After a face-off of pops and hisses the clouds slunk south, to burst into storm on the horizon.

They were ghosts, I suppose, the procession of the dead. They weren’t pale kings and pale maidens, they were work-worn men and women—perfectly ordinary people, except for being dead. You’d never mistake them for living people. You couldn’t quite see through them, but they were even more drained of colour than everything else, and they weren’t quite as solid as they ought to be. One of the men I recognised. He had been sitting in Fedw Hir near Grampar making blubbing sounds with his mouth. Now he strode along easily with a spring in his step. His face was grave and composed, he was a man with dignity and purpose. He bent and picked up one of my oak leaves from the path and offered it like a ticket at the cinema as he passed between the two trees. I didn’t see anyone take it. I couldn’t see into the darkness at all.

Winter brings a colder palette with more heavy blue and violet, Fall has substantial more reddish and brown, Summer brings a variation of pastel colours and Spring fresh green and tangerine.

The young world was without a spring: it knew nothing beyond rock and water. There was the colour of open skies and of sunrise and sunset. The only sounds came from the movement of water, whether of rain or streams or waves, from thunder, and from wind sweeping across rock.

Heliogabalus loved his children the better for resembling him in sin. But Christ loves his children the more for resembling him in sanctity. I have read of some springs that change the colour of the cattle that drink of them into the colour of their own waters, as Du Bartas sings: "Cerona, Xanth, and Cephisus do make The thirsty flocks, that of their waters take, Black, red, and white; and near the crimson deep, The Arabian fountain maketh crimson sheep.

The Sister Bells had neither a sad nor fearful ring. At the core of each chime was a vibrancy, a promise of a better spring, a resonance coloured by beautiful, sustained vibrations. Their sound penetrated deeply, creating mirages in the mind and touching the most hardened of men. With a skilful bell-ringer the Sister Bells could turn doubters into churchgoers, and the explanation for their powerful tone was that they were malmfulle - that silver had been added to the bronze when the church bells were cast. The more silver, the more beautiful and resonant the chime. The skilfully crafted moulds and bronze had already cost Eirik Hekne a fortune, far more than his twin daughters had ever earned with their weaves. In the madness of his grief he went to the melting pot and threw in all his silver cutlery, then shoved his big working hands deep into his pockets and threw two fistfuls of silver dalers into the boiling alloy, coins that stayed on the surface surprisingly long, before they melted and the bubbles rose

There is a small worm in a dog’s tongue…: if this is removed from the animal while a pup, it will never become mad or lose its appetite. This worm, after being carried thrice round a fire, is given to persons who have been bitten by a mad dog, to prevent them from becoming mad. This madness, too, is prevented by eating a cock’s brains; but the virtue of these brains lasts for one year only, and no more. They say, too, that a cock’s comb, pounded, is highly efficacious as an application to the wound; as also, goose-grease, mixed with honey. The flesh also of a mad dog is sometimes salted, and taken with the food, as a remedy for this disease. In addition to this, young puppies of the same sex as the dog that has inflicted the injury, are drowned in water, and the person who has been bitten eats their liver raw. The dung of poultry, provided it is of a red colour, is very useful, applied with vinegar; the ashes, too, of the tail of a shrew-mouse, if the animal has survived and been set at liberty; a clod from a swallow’s nest, applied with vinegar; the young of a swallow, reduced to ashes; or the skin or old slough of a serpent that has been cast in spring, beaten up with a male crab in wine.

The estate sprawled across a rolling green land. I'd never seen anything like it; even out former manor couldn't compare. It was veiled in roses and ivy, with patios and balconies and staircases sprouting from it's alabaster sides. The grounds were encased by woods, but stretched so far that I could barely see the distant line of the forest. So much colour, so much sunlight and movement and texture... I could hardly drink it in fast enough. To paint it would be useless, would never do it justice. My awe might have subdued my fear had the place not been so wholly empty and silent. Even the garden through which we walked, following a gravel path to the main doors of the house, seemed hushed and sleepingg. Above the array of amethyst irises and pale snowdrops and butter-yellow daffodils swaying in the balmy breeze, the faint stench of metal tickled my nose. Of course it would be magic, because it was spring here. What wretched power did they possess to make their lands so different from ours, to control the seasons and weather as if they owned them?

THE MODERN HEALTHY LONGEVITY FOOD PYRAMID EXPLAINED The foundation of a modern healthy diet includes a wide variety of colourful vegetables, beans, minimally processed whole grains, nuts, seeds and fruits. These plant-based foods should be consumed every day and form the largest portion of our calories. Extra-virgin cold-pressed olive oil and avocado fruits can be used daily as condiments together with a range of spices, lemon juice and very small amounts of iodised salt.9 Fish, shellfish and molluscs can be consumed two to three times per week. Small portions of cheese and a few eggs can be consumed one to two times per week. Meat and sweets should be eaten only occasionally. Spring water and herbal teas are the best drinks to stay hydrated. All sugary beverages, such as soft

This solitude hurt pleasantly; it made me sorry, but I would not have traded it for anything. The ground smelled of the warm moisture of spring. Turtledoves landed in the poplars, pigeons were bathing in the shallow water, ruffling their feathers, splashing red and green droplets all around. A cowbell rang sluggishly somewhere in the distance. A familiar place, familiar colours, familiar sounds. I looked around: it was mine. I smelled the air: it was mine. I listened: it was mine.

There were rockets like a flight of scintillating birds singing with sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark smoke: their leaves opened like a whole spring unfolding in a moment, and their shining branches dropped glowing flowers down upon the astonished hobbits, disappearing with a sweet scent just before they touched their upturned faces. There were fountains of butterflies that flew glittering into the trees; there were pillars of coloured fires that rose and turned into eagles, or sailing ships, or a phalanx of flying swans; there was a red thunderstorm and a shower of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that sprang suddenly into the air with a yell like an embattled army, and came down again into the Water with a hiss like a hundred hot snakes.

The garden which lay around it would be a lady water-colourist’s heaven, herbaceous borders, rockeries, and water-gardens were carried to a perfection of vulgarity, and flaunted a riot of huge and hideous flowers, each individual bloom appearing twice as large, three times as brilliant as it ought to have been and if possible of a different colour from that which nature intended. It would be hard to say whether it was more frightful, more like glorious Technicolor, in spring, in summer, or in autumn. Only in the depth of winter, covered by the kindly snow, did it melt into the landscape and become tolerable

The room where she now stayed faced out on to a garden that was yellowed with the parched desolation of winter. The dried and leafless stalks of flowers that had bloomed in the summer stood black against the world that did not want them any more, and of whose existence they had forgotten long ago, after the last flowers had faded. Hannah Theron felt at home with these tattered stalks. Her life hung in the same sort of tatters. Only she still tried to cover herself with the rags. That was where she felt that the winter-tarnished stalks standing in a hard bitterness in a garden that did not want them any more were stronger than she was. They were defiant and they did not care, and they had shed all their pretences. They would be pulled up before the spring rains and the first sowings. They did not look forward to any future summer. In the cold wind shaking their brittleness they had no dreams of a slow life sap stirring, flowing, beating. If only she could lose this useless emotion, this wan thing that was not a hope and that had in it no element of caressingness, then she could at least stand on level terms with those things that did not regret the passing of their coloured times.

Tears fall like liquid leaves into the streams and full, autumn-coloured rivers of our blood And liquid leaves become crystal in our winter fortress before they flow shifting, changing rich red by grace of autumn and fertile in the spring

The coat was like my melody in her Spring term, I Love.