THE SINGERS OF SPRING

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 200, 12 November 1927, Page 27 (Supplement)

THE SINGERS OF SPRING

Long, long ago, when the garden of the earth belonged only to the wee folk who loved and cared for it so well, there dwelt in it a little band of golden - gowned fairies who were known to all as the Singers of Spring. For as soon as the warm winds blew from the sunny north, they sought, the singers and whispered to them alone the glad tidings of the coming of spring. Then all through the sunlit hours of the day and long into the moon-silvered night, these fairies sang sweet songs to waken their sisters who lay hidden from the winter’s frost. In their long gowns of gold and green and their wide yellow sun-bonnets, they flit hither and thither, poking their little heads into each tiny corner where they knew a fairy lay. “Come out and greet the maiden Spring,” they sang, in thrilling tones that blended with the birdsong. “Come out and laugh with tlio sun.” Out of the forks of the trees, out of the hollow trunks, out of the tightcurled leaves on the ground, out of the air itself it seemed, the fairy hosts came dancing, came singing in the sunshine. The garden was aflame with hues of rose and violet, glimpses of primrose and hyacinth, tints of anemone and cyclamen, azure wings and gossamer gowns. It echoed with the music of many voices, the singing of the birds, and everywhere the calling of the Singers of Spring: “Awake! The happiness of dawn is here. Come out and dance with Spring!” One day, alas, an unfamiliar voice rang through the garden of the earth. The fairies whispered together in little frightened groups, and the winds stirred in the trees. The humans had come to rob them of their heritage! For many nights and days the golden Spring Singers worked in the hollow tree, making their flower homes as their sisters did that they might live on. in their garden. Out of the dawn clouds, out of the sunset too, they wove their colours. Orange of seashells they stole, and gold of the streaming sunshine, and from these, and line dew-shimmering gossamer, they made their flower-bells, tall, graceful, green and golden daffodils that rang out sweetly with the music of spring. And now, if only tve knew what night the maiden Spring would choose to kiss winter farewell, perhaps in the dawning light, we, too, should hear the golden melodies which rouse the fairly folk from their winter slumbers to dance and be gay with spring. Fitzie Morris, Epsom Caged 14).