Yet the sun beams gloriously many a cloudless day in midwinter, casting long lance shadows athwart the dazzling expanse.
In June small flecks of the dead, decaying sod begin to appear, gradually widening and uniting with one another, covered with creeping rags of water during the day, and ice by night, looking as hopeless and unvital as crushed rocks just emerging from the darkness of the glacial period.

Walk the meadow now! Scarce the memory of a flower will you find.

The ground seems twice dead.

Nevertheless, the annual resurrection is drawing near.

The life-giving sun pours his floods, the last snow-wreath melts, myriads of growing points push eagerly through the steaming mold, the birds come back, new wings fill the air, and fervid summer life comes surging on, seemingly yet more glorious than before.
This is a perfect meadow, and under favorable circumstances exists without manifesting any marked changes for centuries.