I pray you arise; Bright yellow crocus!

" In this poem he relates how he absorbed into his inmost being the orange sky of evening, the curling mist, the last autumnal crocus, the "souls of lonely places," and the huge peak, which terrified him at nightfall by seeming to stride after him and which awoke in him a "...dim and undermined sense Of unknown modes of being.

The day was gloomy and the purple and white crocuses, which children scattered before her, betokened, so it was said, disaster.

Then Giles came in with some purple and some orange crocuses, which he laid upon his wife's plate.

" The countersign was "Spring," and where the spirit of it stepped, golden crocuses had thrust up through the warming earth, not far from where, a night or two before, fire-balls dropped from a hostile air- craft.

" It is raining mightily; strong, straight, earnest rain, that harshly lashes the meek earth, that sends angry runlets down the gravel walks, that muddies the gold goblets of the closed crocuses.

As far back as the time of Juno, we read, according to Homer's graphic account, how: "Glad earth perceives, and from her bosom pours Unbidden herbs and voluntary flowers: Thick, new-born violets a soft carpet spread, And clust'ring lotos swelled the rising bed; And sudden hyacinths the earth bestrow, And flamy crocus made the mountain glow.