11
Spring, spring! Bytuene Mershe ant Averil, when spray biginneth to spring! When shaws be sheene and swards full fayre, and leaves both large and longe! When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, in the spring time, the only pretty ring time, when the birds do sing, hey–ding–a–ding ding, cuckoo, jug–jug, pu–wee, ta– witta–woo! And so on and so on and so on. See almost any poet between the Bronze Age and 1805.
But how absurd that even now, in the era of central heating and tinned peaches, a thousand so–called poets are still writing in the same strain! For what difference does spring or winter or any other time of year make to the average civilized person nowadays? In a town like London the most striking seasonal change, apart from the mere change of temperature, is in the
