THE WINDS OF SPRING

Evening Star, Issue 19062, 3 October 1925, Page 2

THE WINDS OF SPRING

One’s estimate of wind depends on whether wo are going with it or the opposite. But with many people, especially women, wind from any direction worries them. To some folks its bunting at the house or whistling down the chimneys is intolerable—gives them nerves. To others it’s a weird sweet music to which they love to listen. For those who do not like any kind of it this has been a trying spring. Spring usually brings among its gifts a good supply of wind. But this year has been exceptional. The “ oldest inhabitant ’ may find it difficult to recall one in which the wind kept at the job so persistently. , Usually, too, ' the spring winds come from the north-east, Ibis year they came from every quarter of the compass, though their partiality was the west and the south. And they stung sharp and keen as if thrice sifted over frozen snows, as very likely they were, for they brought some of it on their wings, and powdered the hills and valleys till we were tempted to think that winter was going to win the day. But faith detects

The trumpet of a prophecy. Oh, wind I If winter comes can spring he far behind ? It seemed to be a good way behind this year. But it is here at last. We want to say a good word for the winds of spring. We have written of them before, but long ago, and some repetition may bo permitted. *«» ' » The winds of spring! How can one characterise them? They arc all various, but working harmoniously to a common end. Some have stylo; others only a mere manner. There is the south-west one, for instance. There is a certain robust, business-like briskness about him. He knows his work, and loses no lime in executing it. Nobody can doubt what he means when he starts on his job, and nobody cares to dispute with him. The only effective argument is to button your coat tighter and see that your umbrella is handy. Ho is loud and blustery; but there is life, too, in his roughish horseplay. He usually comes with a dose of rain, and ho is novei - stinted as to tho quantify. Ho is as liberal with it as certain folks are said to be of other people’s money. He is beloved of the duck shooters in autumn at Lake Ellesmere. But his brother—or shall we say his sister?— of the mature spring has often in comparison the softness of a lady’s cheek. Ho or his southern relative is the favorite of tho angler. .Curiously enough, he has the same character in England. Kingsley thus addresses him : Oh, blessed south wind that toots his horn Through every hole and crack,

I'm off at eight to-morrow morn To bring such fishes back. That was probably the resolve of not a few with us here last Wednesday or Thursday, for the Ist of October is the red-letter date of the disciples of Isaak Walton. The south or south-western wind is also a favorite in northern lands, as he is with sportsmen among ns if we are to judge from the frequent poetic allusions to it. Alice Moynell in her prose poem, ‘ Winds of the World,’ so subtle in thought, so deft in phrasing, pays compliments to him. Something of what she says would apply to him hero. “When he brings his rain he brings it with the majestic onset announced by his breath. His are the opened evenings with a' day shut down with cloud. He.fills the air with innumerable particles of moisture that scatter and bestow tho sun.” It is the nor’-onster that appears to bo dreaded at Homo, though Kingsley’s chivalry loads him to sny that it is the hard grey weather that broods the hardy Englishman. Here it is not. so dreaded, for it is without the harshness of its northern relative. We seem to be favorites of it, for it stays longer with us than any other. It is the prevailing wind in these parts. The rain that it sometimes brings up on its wings is not like that of tho son’-west, steady and determined. It sometimes drives with what Burns would call “ hitter skyte.” Jt is sharp and angry, often like the outburst of a passionate temper, and it is soon over. But occasionally a gloomy fit takes it, and when it starts to rain it may dribble on for a wliolo week, not energetically, but just as if too tired to stop. As spring advances, however, it takes heart. It hustles away the clouds and lets tho sunshine through. As spring merges into summer it becomes trying a hit, like a guest who has overstayed his welcome while, and tells the joke without a smile. It has then a dry and wither ing influence. It gets on tho nerves of weak people, and even strong ones as well. Tho flowers and fruits try to ■ take shelter from it behind the scared and dronthy trees. Then there is the nor’-west wind. It is a rare visitor with us in the spring, and not common at any time. Up Canterbury way it flattens folks out. It is better than no wind, though our northern

friends would probably dissent from that dictum. For there it gets on such friendly terms with the dust that it insists on introducing it into every corner of your eyes and nose and ears, and every secret place in your house. It is only once in a blue moon that wo have a nor’-wester here in springtime. And in summer, if they do ever come, they are followed by a shower hath that clears away. the grit and freshens everything up. There are other winds of spring, but they arc without character. You can hardly name them. You have to line! out their location mainly by the weathercock. But these that wo have mentioned are self-assertive, and need no pointers to make you aware of their presence.

The winds of spring arc sometimes disconcerting, especially if yon don’t happen to bo going their way, hut they aro real good company if you know how to treat them. See them as they turn somersaults over the paddocks or along the road, take the trees in their arms and shake them till the buds and leaves come out to see what’s wrong, “Striking the sides of the dark pines the wind changes their color and turns them paler. The oak leaves slide one over the other, hand over hand,. layinr shadow after shadow upon the white road. . . . They roll the wavelets

carelessly as marbles to the shore. They walk among the mowing grass like a farmer feeling the crop with his hand one side and opening it with his walking stick the other.” With their myriad invisible hands they are working in the interests of life everywhere. They move on stagnant air and. keep us from being .poisoned. They penetrate our homes, in the housewife’. 1 ? despite, and bring vitality where they do. We array ourselves against them

behind barriers of clothing or walls and windows barricaded with every' skill. Yet we could not live without them. They are man’s best friend. They lift the smoke from our cities; they carry the rain to where it is required. All the railways in tho world could not perform the service that tho wind does every day shifting the clouds from place to place and dispersing tho rain when it is most needed. When they are busy at night shepherding tho cloud flocks of the sky, one may see many a weird and wonderful picture. “The moon rides higli glad of the gale,” as Charlotte Bronte wrote in a sentence which Swinburne says is matchless in its descriptive po#er, “as glad as if she gave herself to its fierce caresses with love.” If we trusted ourselves more to these caresses we should all be stronger and better men and women. In Richard Jefferies’ story of ‘ Bovis ’ he makes the Wind say: “ Bevis, my love, if you want to know all about the sun and the stars and everything, you must come to me.” And it goes on to tell him that if he would but drink him morning, noon, and night life and tho world will bo a new thing for Bevis. So it would for us all. But we shut ourselves studiously a\vay from both sun and wind, and so we lose elasticity and vim. And how tho wind lends itself to do our meanest services. Much of it comes to an end in our nostrils. You meet it in street and slum, cleansing the gutters, dustiug out the hovels, and blowing them clear of their mephitic vapors.

The winds of spring! What strange kinship is this that man feels with them? They are the breath of his breath. As they stir tho sap and wake the dormant world, so some mysterious thrill of the pulses beats within him as they toy or wrestle with him. Nay, to earth’s life with mine some presence or dream or desire (How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goesj Rapture of life ineffable, perfect as if in tho brier, Leafless there by my door trembles

a sense of tho rose. And what is the mystery of it? The subtle mind of the ancient Greek wrestled with it and traced it to Deity. One recalls their wind gods— H?olus,»Linos, Zepherus, Pan, Hermes, and the rest. And there away back beyond these into India, with its dreams of Maya and Marnts, and forward into Teutonic mythology, wo can see them , along a similar track. Tho phenomenon of air in motion has been woven into a thousand different forms. Here is its mystic fascination in our own literature as it laid hold of the Celtic genius in one of its bards, Taliessen:

Discover thou what it, is The strong creation from before the flood, Without flesh, wdthout hone, without head, without feet. It will neither be younger nor older than the beginning. It has no fear, nor' the wide wants . of created things. Great God! How the sea whitens when it comes. It is in the field, it is in the wood; Without hand, without foot, Without age, -without season. It is always of the same ago with the ages of ages, And of equal breadth with the surface of the earth. Discover then what it is! Exactly. But that is just the problem. Perhaps tho keen spiritual mind of the Jew came nearest to it. It is profoundly suggestive that his words for wind and spirit wore one and the same. And so tko idea was carried over into Christian doctrine where the third person of tho Trinity is symbolised by the wind. But here we come within sight and sound of the mysterious seas of theology, and we will he wise not to venture our frail thought barque on their unchartered waves.