Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/396

274 The halo is still about the infant brow. So the Year holds its breath, is afraid to speak aloud, for fear this wonderful thing, this child of its begetting, may slip away again to the darkness from which it came. We become less fearful as the days go on, the times grow lusty, and awe gives place to delight.

Spring is everywhere a well-loved time, as a thousand poets have testified. Even in Hong-Kong, where it comes as boldly and as flauntingly, in autumn clothing, as an Eastern queen; even in Singapore and Manila, where it drags itself in tiredly after heat; even in the grimiest Northern town, smoke-obscured and foul, the young, timid grass that peers up from the rough edges of pavements, the small, misshapen trees, hopefully green, bring the message of youth and gladness. But in Japan it is the most rapturous, enchanting time, ethereally, earthily beautiful; of soft, misty, tender-coloured skies; of sudden tears and of as sudden sunlight; laughing, coaxing, teasing, elusive—joyously and exuberantly young.

In February the Plum blooms on, and the Camellias—small double pink ones, big single red ones, pure waxy white ones, and those which, they say, resemble a decapitated head when they fall off—appear in crowds. Indeed, the Camellia goes on pretty well throughout the cold season—from November to March—and might almost be called, like