The Life of the Fabled Immortals

From The Tussie Mussies (1955), by Violet De Mars Trovillion and Hal W. Trovillion.

Though not often consciously recognized, perhaps this is the great pleasure of summer: to watch the earth, the dead particles, resolving themselves into the living case of life, to see the seed-leaf push aside the clod and become by degrees the perfumed flower. From the tiny, mottled egg come the wings that by and by shall pass the immense sea. It is in this marvelous transformation of clods and cold matter into living things that the joy and the hope of Summer reside. Every blade of grass, each leaf, each separate floret and petal is an inscription speaking of hope. Consider the grasses and the oaks, the swallows, the sweet, blue butterfly-they are one and all a sign and token showing before our eyes earth made into life. So that my hope becomes as broad as the horizon afar, reiterated by each leaf, sung on every bough, reflected in the gleam of every flower. There is so much for us yet to come, so much to be gathered and enjoyed. Not for you or me, now, but for our race, who will ultimately use this magical secret for their happiness. Earth holds secrets enough to give them the life of the fabled Immortals. My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately the sunshine and the Summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as it were, interwoven into man’s existence. He shall take from all their beauty and enjoy their glory.
  RICHARD JEFFERIES.