The pageant of summer

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

IN MEMORY OF

PROFESSOR WILLIAM MERRILL

AND
MRS. IMOGENE MERRILL

BIOLOGY
LIBRARY

HE PAGEANT
OF SUMMER
BY RICHARD
JEFFERIES j»

GI

T

HE PAGEANT
OF SUMMER

Originally printed in Longman'^
Magazine, June, 1883, and re-issued
in the volume entitled The Life of
the Fields, London, 1884.

q^HE PAGEANT OF SUMMER
HV RICHARD JKFFERIES

PORTLAND MAINE
THOMAS B MOSHER
MDCCCCI

BIOLOGY
LIBRARY

•
GIFT

^Mrlj

BIOLOGY
LIBRARY

PROEM

1DO not want change : I want the same old and
loved things, the same wild-flowers, the same
trees and soft ash-green ; the turtle-doves, the
blackbirds, the coloured yellowhammer sing, sing,
singing so long as there is light to cast a shadow
on the dial, for such is the measure of his song,
and I want them in the same place. Let me find
them morning after morning, the starry-white pet-
als radiating, striving upwards to their ideal. Let
me see the idle shadows resting on the white dust ;
let me hear the humble-bees, and stay to look
down on the rich dandelion disc. Let me see the
very thistles opening their great crowns — I should
miss the thistles ; the reed-grasses hiding the moor-
hen ; the bryony bine, at first crudely ambitious
and lifted by force of youthful sap straight above
the hedgerow to sink of its own weight presently
and progress with crafty tendrils ; swifts shot
through the air with outstretched wings like
crescent-headed shaftless arrows darted from the
clouds ; the chaffinch with a feather in her bill ; all
the living staircase of the spring, step by step,
upwards to the great gallery of the summer — let
me watch the same succession year by year.

M699160

II

A LITTLE feather droops downward to the
ground — a swallow's feather fuller of mira-
cle than the Pentateuch — how shall that
feather be placed again in the breast where it
grew? Nothing twice. Time changes the places
that knew us, and if we go back in after years, still
even then it is not the old spot ; the gate swings
differently, new thatch has been put on the old
gables, the road has been widened, and the sward
the driven sheep lingered on is gone. Who dares
to think then? For faces fade as flowers, and
there is no consolation. So now I am sure I was
right in always walking the same way by the starry
flowers striving upwards on a slender ancestry of
stem ; I would follow the plain old road to-day if I
could. Let change be far from me ; that irresisti-
ble change must come is bitter indeed. Give me
the old road, the same flowers — they were only
stitchwort — the old succession of days and garland,
ever weaving into it fresh wild-flowers from far and
near. Fetch them from distant mountains, dis-
cover them on decaying walls, in unsuspected
corners; though never seen before, still they are
the same : there has been a place in the heart
waiting for them.

RICHARD JEFFERIES

From ' ' Wild Flowers "

T

HE PAGEANT
OF SUMMER

" / wonder to myself how they can
all get on without me ; how they man-
age, bird and flower, without ME, to
keep the calendar for them. For I
noted it so carefully and lovingly day
by day."

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER
I

KEEN rushes, long and thick, stand-
V_J ing up above the edge of the ditch,
told the hour of the year as distinctly as
the shadow on the dial the hour of the
day. Green and thick and sappy to the
touch, they felt like summer, soft and
elastic, as if full of life, mere rushes
though they were. On the fingers they
left a green scent ; rushes have a separate
scent of green, so, too, have ferns, very
different to that of grass or leaves. Ris-
ing from brown sheaths, the tall stems
enlarged a little in the middle, like classi-
cal columns, and heavy with their sap and
freshness, leaned against the hawthorn
sprays. From the earth they had drawn
its moisture, and made the ditch dry;

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

some of the sweetness of the air had
entered into their fibres, and the rushes —
the common rushes — were full of beauti-
ful summer. The white pollen of early
grasses growing on the edge was dusted
from them each time the hawthorn boughs
were shaken by a thrush. These lower
sprays came down in among the grass,
and leaves and grass-blades touched.
Smooth round stems of angelica, big as a
gun-barrel, hollow and strong, stood on
the slope of the mound, their tiers of
well-balanced branches rising like those
of a tree. Such a sturdy growth pushed
back the ranks of hedge parsley in full
white flower, which blocked every avenue
and winding bird's-path of the bank. But
the ' gix,' or wild parsnip, reached already
high above both, and would rear its fluted
stalk, joint on joint, till it could face a
man. Trees they were to the lesser birds,
not even bending if perched on; but
though so stout, the birds did not place
their nests on or against them. Some-

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

thing in the odour of these umbelliferous
plants, perhaps, is not quite liked; if
brushed or bruised they give out a bitter
greenish scent. Under their cover, well
shaded and hidden, birds build, but not
against or on the stems, though they will
affix their nests to much less certain sup-
ports. With the grasses that overhung
the edge, with the rushes in the ditch
itself, and these great plants on the
mound, the whole hedge was wrapped
and thickened. No cunning of glance
could see through it; it would have
needed a ladder to help any one look
over.

It was between the may and the June
roses. The may bloom had fallen, and
among the hawthorn boughs were the
little green bunches that would feed the
redwings in autumn. High up the briars
had climbed, straight and towering while
there was a thorn or an ash sapling, or a
yellow-green willow to uphold them, and
then curving over towards the meadow.

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

The buds were on them, but not yet open ;
it was between the may and the rose.

As the wind, wandering over the sea,
takes from each wave an invisible portion,
and brings to those on shore the ethereal
essence of ocean, so the air lingering
among the woods and hedges — green
waves and billows — became full of fine
atoms of summer. Swept from notched
hawthorn leaves, broad-topped oak leaves,
narrow ash sprays and oval willows ; from
vast elm cliffs and sharp-taloned brambles
under; brushed from the waving grasses
and stiffening corn, the dust of the sun-
shine was borne along and breathed.
Steeped in flower and pollen to the music
of bees and birds, the stream of the atmos-
phere became a living thing. It was life
to breathe it, for the air itself was life.
The strength of the earth went up through
the leaves into the wind. Fed thus on
the food of the Immortals, the heart
opened to the width and depth of the
summer — to the broad horizon afar, down

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

to the minutest creature in the grass, up
to the highest swallow. Winter shows us
Matter in its dead form, like the Primary
rocks, like granite and basalt — clear but
cold and frozen crystal. Summer shows
us Matter changing into life, sap rising
from the earth through a million tubes,
the alchemic power of light entering the
solid oak ; and see ! it bursts forth in
countless leaves. Living things leap in
the grass, living things drift upon the air,
living things are coming forth to breathe
in every hawthorn bush. No longer does
the immense weight of Matter — the dead,
the crystallised — press ponderously on
the thinking mind. The whole office of
Matter is to feed life — to feed the green
rushes, and the roses that are about to
be; to feed the swallows above, and us
that wander beneath them. So much
greater is this green and common rush
than all the Alps.

Fanning so swiftly, the wasp's wings
are but just visible as he passes; did he

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

pause, the light would be apparent through
their texture. On the wings of the dragon-
fly as he hovers an instant before he
darts there is a prismatic gleam. These
wing textures are even more delicate than
the minute filaments on a swallow's quill,
more delicate than the pollen of a flower.
They are formed of matter indeed, but
how exquisitely it is resolved into the
means and organs of life! Though not
often consciously recognised, 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 marvellous transforma-
tion 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. Con-

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

sider 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 every 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. Hence it
is that a flower is to me so much more
than stalk and petals. When I look in
the glass I see that every line in my face
means pessimism ; but in spite of my face

15

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

— that is my experience — I remain an
optimist. Time with an unsteady hand
has etched thin crooked lines, and, deep-
ening the hollows, has cast the original
expression into shadow. Pain and sorrow
flow over us with little ceasing, as the
sea-hoofs beat on the beach. Let us not
look at ourselves but onwards, and take
strength from the leaf and the signs of
the field. He is indeed despicable who
cannot look onwards to the ideal life
of man. Not to do so is to deny our
birthright of mind.

The long grass flowing towards the
hedge has reared in a wave against it.
Along the hedge it is higher and greener,
and rustles into the very bushes. There
is a mark only now where the footpath
was; it passed close to the hedge, but its
place is traceable only as a groove in the
sorrel and seed-tops. Though it has quite
filled the path, the grass there cannot send
its tops so high; it has left a winding
crease. By the hedge here stands a moss-

16

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

grown willow, and its slender branches
extend over the sward. Beyond it is an
oak, just apart from the bushes; then the
ground gently rises, and an ancient pollard
ash, hollow and black inside, guards an
open gateway like a low tower. The differ-
ent tone of green shows that the hedge is
there of nut-trees ; but one great hawthorn
spreads out in a semicircle roofing the
grass which is yet more verdant in the still
pool (as it were) under it. Next a corner,
more oaks, and a chestnut in bloom. Re-
turning to this spot an old apple-tree stands
right out in the meadow like an island.
There seemed just now the tiniest twinkle
of movement by the rushes, but it was lost
among the hedge parsley. Among the
grey leaves of the willow there is another
flit of motion ; and visible now against the
sky there is a little brown bird, not to be
distinguished at the moment from the
many other little brown birds that are
known to be about. He got up into the
willow from the hedge parsley somehow,

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

without being seen to climb or fly. Sud-
denly he crosses to the tops of the haw-
thorn and immediately flings himself up
into the air a yard or two, his wings and
ruffled crest making a ragged outline ; jerk,
jerk, jerk, as if it were with the utmost
difficulty he could keep even at that height.
He scolds, and twitters, and chirps, and all
at once sinks like a stone into the hedge
and out of sight as a stone into a pond.
It is a whitethroat; his nest is deep in
the parsley and nettles. Presently he
will go out to the island apple-tree and
back again in a minute or two ; the pair of
them are so fond of each other's affection-
ate company they cannot remain apart.

Watching the line of the hedge, about
every two minutes, either near at hand or
yonder a bird darts out just at the level of
the grass, hovers a second with labouring
wings, and returns as swiftly to the cover.
Sometimes it is a flycatcher, sometimes a
greenfinch, or chaffinch, now and then
a robin, in one place a shrike, perhaps

18

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

another is a redstart. They are flyfishing
all of them, seizing insects from the sorrel
tips and grass, as the kingfisher takes a
roach from the water. A blackbird slips
up into the oak and a dove descends in
the corner by the chestnut tree. But these
are not visible together, only one at a time
and with intervals. The larger part of the
life of the hedge is out of sight. All the
thrush-fledglings, the young blackbirds,
and finches are hidden, most of them on
the mound among the ivy, and parsley, and
rough grasses, protected too by a roof of
brambles. The nests that still have eggs
are not, like the nests of the early days of
April, easily found; they are deep down
in the tangled herbage by the shore of
the ditch, or far inside the thorny thickets
which then looked mere bushes, and are
now so broad. Landrails are running in
the grass concealed as a man would be
in a wood ; they have nests and eggs on
the ground for which you may search in
vain till the mowers come.

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

Up in the corner a fragment of white fur
and marks of scratching show where a doe
has been preparing for a litter. Some well
trodden runs lead from mound to mound;
they are sandy near the hedge where the
particles have been carried out adhering
to the rabbits' feet and fur. A crow rises
lazily from the upper end of the field, and
perches in the chestnut. His presence,
too, was unsuspected. He is there by far
too frequently. At this season the crows
are always in the mowing grass, searching
about, stalking in winding tracks from
furrow to furrow, picking up an egg here
and a foolish fledgling that has wandered
from the mound yonder. Very likely there
may be a moorhen or two slipping about
under cover of the long grass, thus hidden
they can leave the shelter of the flags and
wander a distance from the brook. So
that beneath the surface of the grass and
under the screen of the leaves there are
ten times more birds than are seen.

Besides the singing and calling, there

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

is a peculiar sound which is only heard
in summer. Waiting quietly to discover
what birds are about, I become aware of
a sound in the very air. It is not the
midsummer hum which will soon be heard
over the heated hay in the valley and over
the cooler hills alike. It is not enough to
be called a hum, and does but just tremble
at the extreme edge of hearing. If the
branches wave and rustle they overbear
it ; the buzz of a passing bee is so much
louder it overcomes all of it that is in the
whole field. I cannot define it except by
calling the hours of winter to mind — they
are silent; you hear a branch crack or
creak as it rubs another in the wood, you
hear the hoar frost crunch on the grass
beneath your feet, but the air is without
sound in itself. The sound of summer is
everywhere — in the passing breeze, in the
hedge, in the broad-branching trees, in the
grass as it swings ; all the myriad particles
that together make the summer varied are
in motion. The sap moves in the trees,

21

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

the pollen is pushed out from grass and
flower, and yet again these acres and acres
of leaves and square miles of grass blades
— for they would cover acres and square
miles if reckoned edge to edge — are draw-
ing their strength from the atmosphere.
Exceedingly minute as these vibrations
must be, their numbers perhaps may give
them a volume almost reaching in the
aggregate to the power of the ear. Be-
sides the quivering leaf, the swinging
grass, the fluttering bird's wing, and the
thousand oval membranes which innumer-
able insects whirl about, a faint resonance
seems to come from the very earth itself.
The fervour of the sunbeams descending
in a tidal flood rings on the strung harp
of earth. It is this exquisite undertone,
heard and yet unheard, which brings the
mind into sweet accordance with the
wonderful instrument of nature.

By the apple-tree there is a low bank,
where the grass is less tall and admits the
heat direct to the ground; here there are

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

blue flowers — bluer than the wings of my
favourite butterflies — with white centres
— the lovely bird's-eyes, or veronica. The
violet and cowslip, bluebell and rose, are
known to thousands ; the veronica is over-
looked. The ploughboys know it, and
the wayside children, the mower and those
who linger in fields, but few else. Brightly
blue and surrounded by greenest grass,
imbedded in and all the more blue for
the shadow of the grass, these growing
butterflies' wings draw to themselves the
sun. From this island I look down into
the depth of the grasses. Red sorrel
spires — deep drinkers of reddest sun wine
— stand the boldest, and in their numbers
threaten the buttercups. To these in the
distance they give the gipsy-gold tint —
the reflection of fire on plates of the pre-
cious metal. It will show even on a ring
by firelight; blood in the gold, they say.
Gather the open marguerite daisies, and
they seem large — so wide a disc, such
fingers of rays; but in the grass their size

23

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

is toned by so much green. Clover heads
of honey lurk in the bunches and by the
hidden footpath. Like clubs from Poly-
nesia the tips of the grasses are varied in
shape, some tend to a point — the foxtails
— some are hard and cylindrical; others,
avoiding the club shape, put forth the
slenderest branches with fruit of seed at
the ends, which tremble as the air goes
by. Their stalks are ripening and becom-
ing of the colour of hay while yet the
long blades remain green.

Each kind is repeated a hundred times,
the foxtails are succeeded by foxtails, the
narrow blades by narrow blades, but never
become monotonous; sorrel stands by
sorrel, daisy flowers by daisy. This bed of
veronica at the foot of the ancient apple
has a whole handful of flowers, and yet
they do not weary the eye. Oak follows
oak and elm ranks with elm, but the wood-
lands are pleasant; however many times
reduplicated, their beauty only increases.
So, too, the summer days; the sun rises on

24

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

the same grasses and green hedges, there
is the same blue sky, but did we ever have
enough of them ? No, not in a hundred
years! There seems always a depth,
somewhere, unexplored, a thicket that
has not been seen through, a corner full
of ferns, a quaint old hollow tree, which
may give us something. Bees go by me
as I stand under the apple, but they pass
on for the most part bound on a long
journey, across to the clover fields or up
to the thyme lands; only a few go down
into the mowing grass. The hive bees
are the most impatient of insects; they
cannot bear to entangle their wings beat-
ing against grasses or boughs. Not one
will enter a hedge. They like an open and
level surface, places cropped by sheep,
the sward by the roadside, fields of clover,
where the flower is not deep under grass.

II

It is the patient humble bee that goes
down into the forest of the mowing grass.
If entangled, the humble bee climbs up a
sorrel stem and takes wing, without any
sign of annoyance. His broad back with
tawny bar buoyantly glides over the gold-
en buttercups. He hums to himself as
he goes, so happy is he. He knows no
skep, no cunning work in glass receives
his labour, no artificial saccharine aids him
when the beams of the sun are cold, there
is no step to his house that he may alight
in comfort; the way is not made clear
for him that he may start straight for the
flowers, nor are any sown for him. He
has no shelter if the storm descends sud-
denly; he has no dome of twisted straw
well thatched and tiled to retreat to. The
butcher-bird, with a beak like a crocked
iron nail, drives him to the ground, and
leaves him pierced with a thorn ; but no
hail of shot revenges his tortures. The

26

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

grass stiffens at nightfall (in autumn), and
he must creep where he may, if possibly he
may escape the frost. No one cares for
the humble bee. But down to the flower-
ing nettle in the mossy-sided ditch, up into
the tall elm, winding in and out and round
the branched buttercups, along the banks
of the brook, far inside the deepest wood,
away he wanders and despises nothing.
His nest is under the rough grasses and
the mosses of the mound, a mere tunnel
beneath the fibres and matted surface.
The hawthorn overhangs it, the fern grows
by, red mice rustle past.

It thunders, and the great oak trembles ;
the heavy rain drops through the treble
roof of oak and hawthorn and fern.
Under the arched branches the lightning
plays along, swiftly to and fro, or seems
to, like the swish of a whip, a yellowish-
red against the green ; a boom ! a crackle
as if a tree fell from the sky. The thick
grasses are bowed, the white florets of the
wild parsley are beaten down, the rain

27

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

hurls itself, and suddenly a fierce blast
tears the green oak leaves and whirls them
out into the fields; but the humble bee's
home, under moss and matted fibres,
remains uninjured. His house at the root
of the king of trees like a cave in the rock,
is safe. The storm passes and the sun
comes out, the air is the sweeter and the
richer for the rain, like verse with a rhyme;
there will be more honey in the flowers.
Humble he is, but wild; always in the
field, the wood ; always by the banks and
thickets ; always wild and humming to his
flowers. Therefore I like the humble bee,
being, at heart at least, for ever roaming
among the woodlands and the hills and
by the brooks. In such quick summer
storms the lightning gives the impression
of being far more dangerous than the
zig-zag paths traced on the autumn sky.
The electric cloud seems almost level with
the ground and the livid flame to rush to
and fro beneath the boughs as the little
bats do in the evening.

28

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

Caught by such a cloud, I have stayed
under thick larches at the edge of planta-
tions. They are no shelter, but conceal
one perfectly. The wood pigeons come
home to their nest-trees; in larches they
seem to have permanent nests, almost
like rooks. Kestrels, too, come home to
the wood. Pheasants crow, but not from
fear — from defiance; in fear they scream.
The boom startles them, and they instant-
ly defy the sky. The rabbits quietly feed
on out in the field between the thistles and
rushes that so often grow in woodside
pastures, quietly hopping to their favour-
ite places, utterly heedless how heavy
the echoes may be in the hollows of the
wooded hills. Till the rain comes they
take no heed whatever, but then make for
shelter. Blackbirds often make a good
deal of noise; but the soft turtle-doves
coo gently, let the lightning be as savage
as it will. Nothing has the least fear.
Man alone, more senseless than a pigeon,
put a god in vapour; and to this day,

29

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

though the printing press has set a foot on
every threshold, numbers bow the knee
when they hear the roar the timid dove
does not heed. So trustful are the doves,
the squirrels, the birds of the branches,
and the creatures of the field. Under
their tuition let us rid ourselves of mental
terrors, and face death itself as calmly as
they do the livid lightning; so trustful
and so content with their fate, resting in
themselves and unappalled. If but by
reason and will I could reach the godlike
calm and courage of what we so thought-
lessly call the timid turtle-dove, I should
lead a nearly perfect life.

The bark of the ancient apple-tree under
which I have been standing is shrunken
like iron which has been heated and let
cool round the rim of a wheel. For a hun-
dred years the horses have rubbed against
it while feeding in the aftermath. The
scales of the bark are gone or smoothed
down and level, so that insects have no
hiding-place. There are no crevices for

30

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

them, the horsehairs that were caught
anywhere have been carried away by birds
for their nests. The trunk is smooth and
columnar, hard as iron. A hundred times
the mowing grass has grown up around
it, the birds have built their nests, the
butterflies fluttered by, and the acorns
dropped from the oaks. It is a long, long
time, counted by artificial hours or by the
seasons, but it is longer still in another
way. The greenfinch in the hawthorn
yonder has been there since I came out,
and all the time has been happily talking
to his love. He has left the hawthorn
indeed, but only for a minute or two, to
fetch a few seeds, and comes back each
time more full of song-talk than ever.
He notes no slow movement of the oak's
shadow on the grass; it is nothing to
him and his lady dear that the sun, as
seen from his nest, is crossing from one
great bough of the oak to another. The
dew even in the deepest and most tangled
grass has long since been dried, and some

31

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

of the flowers that close at noon will
shortly fold their petals. The morning
airs, which breathe so sweetly, come less
and less frequently as the heat increases.
Vanishing from the sky, the last fragments
of cloud have left an untarnished azure.
Many times the bees have returned to
their hives, and thus the index of the day
advances. It is nothing to the green-
finches; all their thoughts are in their
song-talk. The sunny moment is to them
all in all. So deeply are they rapt in it that
they do not know whether it is a moment
or a year. There is no clock for feeling, for
joy, for love. And with all their motions
and stepping from bough to bough, they
are not restless ; they have so much time,
you see. So, too, the whitethroat in the
wild parsley; so, too, the thrush that just
now peered out and partly fluttered his
wings as he stood to look. A butterfly
comes and stays on a leaf — a leaf much
warmed by the sun — and shuts his wings.
In a minute he opens them, shuts them

32

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

again, half wheels round, and by and by
— just when he chooses, and not before —
floats away. The flowers open, and remain
open for hours, to the sun. Hasteless-
ness is the only word one can make up to
describe it; there is much rest, but no
haste. Each moment, as with the green-
finches, is so full of life that it seems so
long and so sufficient in itself. Not only
the days, but life itself lengthens in sum-
mer. I would spread abroad my arms and
gather more of it to me, could I do so.

All the procession of living and growing
things passes. The grass stands up taller
and still taller, the sheaths open, and the
stalk arises, the pollen clings till the breeze
sweeps it. The bees rush past, and the
resolute wasps ; the humble bees, whose
weight swings them along. About the
oaks and maples the brown chafers swarm,
and the fern-owls at dusk, and the black-
birds and jays by day, cannot reduce their
legions while they last. Yellow butter-
flies, and white, broad red admirals, and

33

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

sweet blues; think of the kingdom of
flowers which is theirs ! Heavy moths
burring at the edge of the copse ; green,
and red, and gold flies ; gnats, like smoke,
around the tree tops; midges so thick
over the brook, as if you could haul a net
full ; tiny leaping creatures in the grass ;
bronze beetles across the path; blue
dragonflies pondering on cool leaves of
water-plantain. Blue jays flitting, a mag-
pie drooping across from elm to elm;
young rooks that have escaped the hostile
shot blundering up into the branches;
missel thrushes leading their fledglings,
already strong on the wing, from field to
field. An egg here on the sward dropped
by a starling ; a red ladybird creeping tor-
toise-like, up a green fern frond. Finches
undulating through the air, shooting
themselves with closed wings, and linnets
happy with their young.

Golden dandelion discs — gold and
orange — of a hue more beautiful, I think,
than the higher and more visible butter-

34

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

cup. A blackbird, gleaming, so black is
he, splashing in the runlet of water across
the gateway. A ruddy kingfisher swiftly
drawing himself, as you might draw a
stroke with a pencil, over the surface of
the yellow buttercups, and away above
the hedge. Hart's-tongue fern, thick with
green, so green as to be thick with its
colour, deep in the ditch under the shady
hazel boughs. White meadow-sweet lift-
ing its tiny florets, and black flowered
sedges. You must push through the reed
grass to find the sword flags; the stout
willow herbs will not be trampled down,
but resist the foot like underwood. Pink
lychnis flowers behind the withy stoles,
and little black moorhens swim away, as
you gather it, after their mother, who has
dived under the water-grass, and broken
the smooth surface of the duckweed.
Yellow loosestrife is rising, thick comfrey
stands at the very edge; the sandpipers
run where the shore is free from bushes.
Back by the underwood the prickly and

35

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

repellant brambles will presently present
us with fruit. For the squirrels the nuts
are forming, green beechmast is there —
green wedges under the spray; up in the
oaks the small knots, like bark rolled up
in a dot, will be acorns. Purple vetches
along the mounds, yellow lotus where the
grass is shorter, and orchis succeeds to
orchis. As I write them, so these things
come — not set in gradation, but like the
broadcast flowers in the mowing grass.

Now follows the gorse, and the pink
rest-harrow, and the sweet lady's bed-
straw, set as it were in the midst of a
little thorn-bush. The broad repetition
of the yellow clover is not to be written ;
acre upon acre, and not one spot of
green, as if all the green had been planed
away, leaving only the flowers to which
the bees come by the thousand from far
and near. But one white campion
stands in the midst of the lake of yellow.
The field is scented as though a hundred
hives of honey had been emptied on it.

36

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

Along the mound by it the blue-bells are
seeding, the hedge has been cut and the
ground is strewn with twigs. Among
those seeding blue-bells and dry twigs
and mosses I think a titlark has his nest,
as he stays all day there and in the oak
over. The pale clear yellow of charlock,
sharp and clear, promises the finches
bushels of seed for their young. Under
the scarlet of the poppies the larks run,
and then for change of colour soar into
the blue. Creamy honeysuckle on the
hedge around the cornfield, buds of wild
rose everywhere, but no sweet petal yet.
Yonder, where the wheat can climb no
higher up the slope, are the purple heath
bells, thyme and flitting stone-chats.

The lone barn shut off by acres of
barley is noisy with sparrows. It is their
city, and there is a nest in every crevice,
almost under every tile. Sometimes the
partridges run between the ricks, and
when the bats come out of the roof,
leverets play in the waggon-track. At

37

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

even a fern-owl beats by, passing close to
the eaves whence the moths issue. On
the narrow waggon-track which descends
along a coombe and is worn in chalk, the
heat pours down by day as if an invisible
lens in the atmosphere focussed the sun's
rays. Strong woody knapweed endures
it, so does toadflax and pale blue scabious,
and wild mignonette. The very sun of
Spain burns and burns and ripens the
wheat on the edge of the coombe, and will
only let the spring moisten a yard or two
around it; but there a few rushes have
sprung, and in the water itself brooklime
with blue flowers grows so thickly that
nothing but a bird could find space to
drink. So down again from this sun of
Spain to woody coverts where the wild
hops are blocking every avenue, and
green-flowered bryony would fain climb
to the trees ; where grey-flecked ivy winds
spirally about the red rugged bark of
pines, where burdocks fight for the foot-
path, and teazle-heads look over the low

38

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

hedges. Brake-fern rises five feet high;
in some way woodpeckers are associated
with brake, and there seem more of them
where it flourishes. If you count the
depth and strength of its roots in the
loamy sand, add the thickness of its flat-
tened stem, and the width of its branching
fronds, you may say that it comes near to
be a little tree. Beneath where the ponds
are bushy mare's tails grow, and on the
moist banks jointed pewterwort; some of
the broad bronze leaves of water-weeds
seem to try and conquer the pond and
cover it so firmly that a wagtail may run
on them. A white butterfly follows
along the waggon-road, the pheasants
slip away as quietly as the butterfly flies,
but a jay screeches loudly and flutters
in high rage to see us. Under an
ancient garden wall among matted bines
of trumpet convolvulus, there is a hedge-
sparrow's nest overhung with ivy on
which even now the last black berries
cling.

39

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

There are minute white flowers on the
top of the wall, out of reach, and lichen
grows against it dried by the sun until it
looks ready to crumble. By the gateway
grows a thick bunch of meadow geranium,
soon to flower; over the gate is the dusty
highway road, quiet but dusty, dotted with
the innumerable footmarks of a flock of
sheep that has passed. The sound of their
bleating still comes back, and the bees
driven up by their feet have hardly had
time to settle again on the white clover
beginning to flower on the short roadside
sward. All the hawthorn leaves and
briar and bramble, the honeysuckle, too,
is gritty with the dust that has been
scattered upon it. But see — can it be?
Stretch a hand high, quick, and reach it
down ; the first, the sweetest, the dearest
rose of June. Not yet expected, for the
time is between the may and the roses,
least of all here in the hot and dusty
highway; but it is found — the first rose
of June.

40

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

Straight go the white petals to the
heart; straight the mind's glance goes
back to how many other pageants of
summer in old times! When perchance
the sunny days were even more sunny;
when the stilly oaks were full of mystery,
lurking like the Druid's mistletoe in the
midst of their mighty branches. A
glamour in the heart came back to it
again from every flower; as the sunshine
was reflected from them so the feeling
in the heart returned tenfold. To the
dreamy summer haze love gave a deep
enchantment, the colours were fairer, the
blue more lovely in the lucid sky. Each
leaf finer, and the gross earth enamelled
beneath the feet. A sweet breath on the
air, a soft warm hand in the touch of
the sunshine, a glance in the gleam of the
rippled waters, a whisper in the dance
of the shadows. The ethereal haze lifted
the heavy oaks and they were buoyant on
the mead, the rugged bark was chastened
and no longer rough, each slender flower

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

beneath them again refined. There was
a presence everywhere with us though
unseen, with us on the open hills, and not
shut out under the dark pines. Dear
were the June roses then because for
another gathered. Yet even dearer now
with so many years as it were upon the
petals; all the days that have been
before, all the heart-throbs, all our hopes
lie in this opened bud. Let not the eyes
grow dim, look not back but forward;
the soul must uphold itself like the sun.
Let us labour to make the heart grow
larger as we become older, as the spread-
ing oak gives more shelter. That we
could but take to the soul some of the
greatness and the beauty of the summer!
Still the pageant moves. The song-
talk of the finches rises and sinks like the
tinkle of a waterfall. The greenfinches
have been by me all the while. A bull-
finch pipes now and then further up the
hedge where the brambles and thorns are
thickest. Boldest of birds to look at, he

42

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

is always in hiding. The shrill tone of a
goldfinch came just now from the ash
branches, but he has gone on. Every four
or five minutes a chaffinch sings close by,
and another fills the interval near the
gateway. There are linnets somewhere,
but I cannot from the old apple-tree fix
their exact place. Thrushes have sung
and ceased ; they will begin again in ten
minutes. The blackbirds do not cease;
the note uttered by a blackbird in the oak
yonder before it can drop is taken up by a
second near the top of the field, and ere it
falls is caught by a third on the left-hand
side. From one of the topmost boughs
of an elm there fell the song of a willow
warbler for awhile; one of the least of
birds, he often seeks the highest branches
of the highest tree.

A yellowhammer has just flown from a
bare branch in the gateway, where he has
been perched and singing a full hour.
Presently he will commence again, and
as the sun declines will sing him to the

43

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

horizon, and then again sing till nearly
dusk. The yellowhammer is almost the
longest of all the singers ; he sits and sits
and has no inclination to move. In the
spring he sings, in the summer he sings,
and he continues when the last sheaves
are being carried from the wheat field.
The redstart yonder has given forth a few
notes, the whitethroat flings himself into
the air at short intervals and chatters, the
shrike calls sharp and determined, faint
but shrill calls descend from the swifts in
the air. These descend, but the twittering
notes of the swallows do not reach so far,
they are too high to-day. A cuckoo has
called by the brook, and now fainter from
a greater distance. That the titlarks are
singing I know, but not within hearing
from here; a dove though, is audible,
and a chiffchaff has twice passed. Afar
beyond the oaks at the top of the field
dark specks ascend from time to time,
and after moving in wide circles for
awhile descend again to the corn. These

44

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

must be larks ; but their notes are not
powerful enough to reach me, though
they would were it not for the song in the
hedges, the hum of innumerable insects,
and the ceaseless 'crake, crake' of land-
rails. There are at least two landrails
in the mowing grass; one of them just
now seemed coming straight towards the
apple-tree, and I expected in a minute to
see the grass move, when the bird turned
aside and entered the tufts and wild pars-
ley by the hedge. Thence the call has
come without a moment's pause, 'crake,
crake,' till the thick hedge seems filled
with it. Tits have visited the apple-
tree over my head, a wren has sung in
the willow, or rather on a dead branch
projecting lower down than the leafy
boughs, and a robin across under the
elms in the opposite hedge. Elms are a
favourite tree of robins, not the upper
branches, but those that grow down the
trunk, and are the first to have leaves in
spring.

45

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

The yellowhammer is the most per-
sistent individually, but I think the
blackbirds when listened to are the
masters of the fields. Before one can
finish another begins, like the summer
ripples succeeding behind each other, so
that the melodious sound merely changes
its position. Now here, now in the
corners, then across the field, again in
the distant copse, where it seems about
to sink, when it rises again almost at
hand. Like a great human artist, the
blackbird makes no effort, being fully
conscious that his liquid tone cannot be
matched. He utters a few delicious
notes, and carelessly quits the green
stage of the oak till it pleases him to
sing again. Without the blackbird, in
whose throat the sweetness of the green
fields dwells, the days would be only
partly summer. Without the violet all
the bluebells and cowslips could not
make a spring, and without the black-
bird, even the nightingale would be but

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

half welcome. It is not yet noon, these
songs have been ceaseless since dawn;
this evening after the yellowhammer has
sung the sun down, when the moon rises
and the faint stars appear, still the cuckoo
will call, and the grasshopper lark, the
landrail's 'crake, crake' will echo from
the mound, a warbler or a blackcap will
utter its notes, and even at the darkest
of the summer night the swallows will
hardly sleep in their nests. As the
morning sky grows blue, an hour before
the sun, up will rise the larks singing and
audible now, the cuckoo will recommence,
and the swallows will start again on their
tireless journey. So that the songs of
the summer birds are as ceaseless as the
sound of the waterfall which plays day
and night.

I cannot leave it, I must stay under the
old tree in the midst of the long grass,
the luxury of the leaves, and the song
in the very air. I seem as if I could
feel all the glowing life the sunshine

47

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

gives and the south wind calls to being.
The endless grass, the endless leaves,
the immense strength of the oak expand-
ing, the unalloyed joy of finch and
blackbird; from all of them I receive
a little. Each gives me something of
the pure joy they gather for themselves.
In the blackbird's melody one note is
mine; in the dance of the leaf shadows
the formed maze is for me, though the
motion is theirs; the flowers with a
thousand faces have collected the kisses
of the morning. Feeling with them, I
receive some, at least, of their fulness
of life. Never could I have enough;
never stay long enough — whether here
or whether lying on the shorter sward
under the sweeping and graceful birches,
or on the thyme-scented hills. Hour
after hour, and still not enough. Or
walking the footpath was never long
enough, or my strength sufficient to
endure till the mind was weary. The
exceeding beauty of the earth, in her

48

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

splendour of life, yields a new thought
with every petal. The hours when the
mind is absorbed by beauty are the only
hours when we really live, so that the
longer we can stay among these things
so much the more is snatched from inev-
itable Time. Let the shadow advance
upon the dial — I can watch it with equa-
nimity while it is there to be watched.
It is only when the shadow is not there,
when the clouds of winter cover it, that
the dial is terrible. The invisible shadow
goes on and steals from us. But now,
while I can see the shadow of the tree
and watch it slowly gliding along the
surface of the grass, it is mine. These
are the only hours that are not wasted
— these hours that absorb the soul and
fill it with beauty. This is real life,
and all else is illusion, or mere endurance.
Does this reverie of flowers and waterfall
and song form an ideal, a human ideal,
in the mind? It does; much the same
ideal that Phidias sculptured of man and

49

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

woman filled with a godlike sense of the
violet fields of Greece, beautiful beyond
thought, calm as my turtle-dove before
the lurid lightning of the unknown. To
be beautiful and to be calm, without
mental fear, is the ideal of nature. If I
cannot achieve it, at least I can think it.

FOUR HUNDRED AND TWEN-
TY-FIVE COPIES OF THIS
BOOK (SEVENTH EDITION)
HAVE BEEN PRINTED ON
JAPAN VELLUM, AND TYPE
DISTRIBUTED, IN THE MONTH
OF MAY, A. D. MDCCCCI, AT

THE PRESS OF GEORGE D.
LORING, PORTLAND, MAINE.

GENERAL LIBRARY
DIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA— BERKELEY

N TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED

k is due on the last date stamped below, or on the

date to which renewed,
ewed books are subject to immediate recall.

155