ANNUAL MIRACLE OF SPRING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23169, 15 October 1938, Page 1 (Supplement)

ANNUAL MIRACLE OF SPRING

Life's Re-Awakening

By MATANGA

SPRING is a stupendous miracle. Had it no regularity of arrival, we should be startled into pudden awe by the first signs of its approach. The first man to catch Bight of it must have been. To many a child even now it is a marvel. Better a moment of rapt wonder before an upthrusting blade of grass than a month in a herbarium, good as that experience may be.

What see you coming to pass in your garden these days? If your mind bo healthily alive there, much more than all the seedsmen's catalogues can telb (The undevout gardener is mad. As the convincing miracle of annual resurrection is unfolded, you may glimpse again the appealing truth in Kipling's lino <*' that half a proper gardener's work is iaone upon his knees." But outside the space fenced off from [the wild the same recurrent awakening takes place. In the shadows of the sheltered valley and uptn the upland slopes, by the quiet waters of the shy stream and where tho wind's impetuous breath (hakes the tree-tops, amid the watered hollows of the marshland and away up along arid ridges where foothold is precarious for all but the most venturesome children of plant-life, tho same great renewal happens. Scarcely more than a handful of days ego, in parts of our southern land, there was no notable sign of this reIbirth. The tide of life had ebbed far from sight, save for vestigial pools here and there; that tide seemed fated to suffer a final burial in caverns beyond the horizon. All looked aged and moribund. Now everything is changed. Vernal Victory Up from the dull earth unthinkingly trodden, out frflm the brittle twig that looked so dead, along the boughs through which the turbulent gale had torn broad paths unchallenged, across the spreading slopes that could boast nothing better than an unlovely and threadbare garb, resurgent growth is coming back with banners of gaily prophetic triumph. Nothing can dim the glory of this oncoming march. Blade and blossom burst their prisons l to share it. The silence of wintry sleep is broken, and the whispered promise of arising freedom begins to swell into songs of certain victory. It is as if the children whom Autumn's pied piper had lured to hidden captivity in the relentless realm of Winter were escaping, to return with dancing glee in step with a new music of their own, that all iHamelin's homes may be glad again. This vernal return of life asserts the power and •? wealthy with which our planet is endowed. No pauper, orphaned and mendicant, is this old world. It is rich bovond the dreams of avarice and has boundless resources for the renewing of its youth. It cherishes the philosopher's stone that can tut* seemingly mortal metal to desirable gold. In its keeping is the vital secret of perpetual motion. Its putting on again of fine raiment, the multiplying of its flocks and herds, the gifts with which its largesse blesses every need, are proofs that, in its own right, it is heir to untold riches. It bears a chalice wherefrom the wine iof life ever flows, however deep the draughts that year after year may take. Churlish man may spill the wealth of that amazing cup. but it is invincibly fed from a source beyond his profaning violence. "As Happy as Kings" In these days, Stevenson's simple Itouplet, dulled by much soulless handling, recovers its brilliance for all having the child heart: The world is so foil of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. It is in the spring that we tread most gaily, with Borrow, the open road, finding day and night, and the wind on the heath, good to know. The caresses and consolations of the season that meant so much to Hamerton come soothingly. We sit with Wordsworth, ■inging as he sings— Beneath these fruit-tree boughs, that shed Their snow-white blossoms on my head, With sweetest sunshine round me spread, Of Spring's unclouded weather: In this sequestr'd nook, how sweet To sit upon my orchard-seat, !And flowers and birds once more to greet, My last year's friends together.

Confidingly we let Gissing take us tout again with his alter ego, Henry {Ryecroft, and talk with us once more of the springs he remembers:

I recall my moments of delight, the tecogni'.ion of each flower th3t unfolded, the surprise of budding branches, clothed in a night with green. The first rnowy gleam upon the blackthorn did not escape me. By its familiar bank. I watched for (he earliest primrose, and in its copse I found the anemone. IMeaduws shining with buttercups, hollows ■anned with the marsh marigold, held me long at gaze I saw (he sallow, glistening with its cones of silvery fur, and splendid with dnst of gold. These common things touch me with more of admiration and of .wonder each time I behold them.

So, in fellowship, with many cleareyed "companions of tho apring," we grasp anew the hopes brought back by earth's reborn vigour and beauty, and claim as our own enough of that bestowal to send us on lightheartedly And often something better than a light -heart gives grace to our going. What is Possession?

We get it for nothing, this joy of the spring—for nothing, that is, save the price of spiritual hoed. The pity of it is that, along with what Whitman calls "tho mania of owning things," V?e have acquired tho habit of enjoying most the things that exclusively belong to us. It is not enough to admire a flower as it grows; we must pluck it and wear it, or give it a sort of pensioner's home, for its last brief days, in a vase! Good that may be, but it is not the best. Our garden-pride builds sometimes too obscuring a wall, and when that happens there is indulged a love of legal possession quite out of touch with the spirit of vernal days.

How the season rebukes the commercialising of our joys! There is nothing Wrong with individual ownership of property; it is of the very warp and woof of personality. But it loses its chief Value when the duty of thought for others, is smothered in the sense of possession. To have as one's own a Jioble work of art is only a fraction of delight; tho rost of it is found in giving to others, less privileged, the chance to Bee it; they may not own it; but, in as full a sense as does its owner, they can possess it. by appreciation of its charm and artistic worth. Springtime, with its lavishing of natural beauty and inspiration, calls V 8 to a great human comradeship of joy. Onlv they miss it whose avid lust of ownership makes merely private possession a ruling passion. Qeltine and spending, we lay waste onr Vuil powers, •Little we sec in Nature that is onrs. That is the heavy cost, severely exacted. of a material outlook. .Surely, in the midst of all this springtide wealth available to all, we shall enter more spaciously into life. Can not make progress ; like James pmetliam, Raskin's artist friend, in learning "the art of appreciation''^