It comes in with no Lord Mayor's Day, and blows no trumpets, and bends no triumphal arches to grace its entree.

Few new voices in the tree-tops hail its advent.

No choirs of tree-toads fiddle in the fens.

No congregation of frogs at twilight gather to the green edges of the unfettered pond to sing their Old Hundred, led by venerable Signor Cronker, in his bright, buskin doublet, mounted on a floating stump, and beating time with a bulrush.

No Shad-spirits with invisible wings, perform their undulating vespers in the heavens, to let the fishermen know that it is time to look to their nets.