midsummer in the fields.
i never see a clear stream running through the fields at this beautiful time of the year but i wish, like old izaak walton, to take rod and line and a pleasant book, and wander away into some sylvan, or romantic region, and give myself up wholly to the influence of the season; to angle, and read, and dream by the ever-lapsing water, in green and flowery meadows, for days and weeks, caring no more for all that is going on in this great and many-coloured world, than if there was no world at all beyond these happy meadows so full of sunshine and quietness. truly that good old man had hit on one of the ways to true enjoyment of life. he knew that simple habits and desires were mighty ingredients in genuine happiness; that to enjoy ourselves, we must first cast the world and all its cares out of our hearts; we must actually renounce its pomps and vanities; and then how sweet becomes every summer bank; how bright every summer stream; what a delicious tranquillity falls upon our hearts; what a self-enjoyment reigns all through it; what a love of god kindles in it from all the fair things around. they may say what they will of the old prince of anglers, of his cruelty and inconsistency; from those charges i have vindicated him in another place,—we know that he was pious and humane. we know that, in the stillness of his haunts, and the leisure of his latter days, wise and kind thoughts flowed in upon his soul, and that the beauty and sweetness[160] of nature which surrounded him, inspired him with feelings of joy and admiration, that streamed up towards the clear heavens above him in grateful thanksgiving. it is these things which have given to his volume an everlasting charm; and that affect me, at this particular time of the year, with a desire to haunt like places it may be the green banks of the beautiful streams of derbyshire—the wye, or the dove; for now are they most lovely, running on amongst the verdant hills and bosky dales of the peak, surrounded by summer’s richest charms. their banks are overhung with deep grass, and many a fair flower droops over them; the foliage of the trees that shroud their many windings, is most delicate; and above them grey rocks lift their heads, or greenest hills swell away to the blue sky. and as evening falls over them what a softness clothes those verdant mountains! what a depth of shadow fills those hollows! what a voice of waters rises on the hushed landscape! but even here, in the vale of trent, it is beautiful. there are a thousand charms gathered about one of these little streams that are hastening towards our fair river. they are charms that belong to this point of time, and that in a week or two will be gone. the spring is gone, with all her long anticipated pleasures. the snowdrop, the crocus, the blue-bell, the primrose, and the cowslip, where are they? they are all buried children of a delicate time, too soon hurried by.
but see! here are delights that will presently be as irrevocably gone. it is evening. what a calm and basking sunshine lies on the green landscape. look round,—all is richness, and beauty, and glory. those tall elms which surround the churchyard, letting the grey tower get but a passing glimpse of the river, and that other magnificent arcade of similar trees which stretch up the side of the same fair stream,—how they hang in the most verdant and luxuriant masses of foliage! what a soft, hazy twilight floats about them! what a slumberous calm rests on them! slumberous did i say? no, it is not slumberous; it has nothing of sleep in its profound repose. it is the depth of a contemplative trance; as if every tree were a living, thinking spirit, lost in the vastness of some absorbing thought. it is the hush of a dream-land; the motionless majesty of an enchanted forest, bearing the spell of an infrangible silence. and see, over those wide meadows, what an[161] affluence of vegetation! see how that herd of cattle, in colour and form, and grouping, worthy of the pencil of cuyp or ruysdael, graces the plenty of that field of most lustrous gold; and all round, the grass growing for the scythe almost overtops the hedges in its abundance. as we track the narrow footpath through them, we cannot avoid a lively admiration of the rich mosaic of colours that are woven all amongst them—the yellow rattle—the crimson stems and heads of the burnet, that plant of beautiful leaves—the golden trifolium—the light quake-grass—the azure milkwort, and clover scenting all the air. hark! the cuckoo sends her voice from the distance, clear and continuous:—
hail to thee, shouting cuckoo! in my youth
thou wert long time, the ariel of my hope,
the marvel of a summer! it did soothe
to listen to thee on some sunny slope,
where the high oaks forbade an ampler scope,
than of the blue skies upward—and to sit,
canopied, in the gladdening horoscope
which thou, my planet, flung—a pleasant fit,
long time my hours endeared, my kindling fancy smit.
and thus i love thee still—thy monotone,
the selfsame transport flashes through my frame,
and when thy voice, sweet sibyl, all is flown
my eager ear, i cannot choose but blame.
o may the world these feelings never tame!
if age o’er me her silver tresses spread,
i still would call thee by a lover’s name,
and deem the spirit of delight unfled,
nor bear, though grey without, a heart to nature dead!
wiffen’s aonian hours.
and lo! there are the mowers at work! there are the hay-makers! green swaths of mown grass—haycocks, and wagons ready to bear them away—it is summer, indeed! what a fragrance comes floating on the gale from the clover in the standing grass, from the new-mown hay; and from those sycamore trees, with all their pendant flowers. it is delicious; and yet one cannot help regretting that the year has advanced so far. there, the wild rose[162] is putting out; the elder is already in flower; they are all beautiful, but saddening signs of the swift-winged time. let us sit down by this little stream, and enjoy the pleasantness that it presents; without a thought of the future. ah! this sweet place is just in its pride. the flags have sprung thickly in the bed of the brook, and their yellow flowers are beginning to shew themselves. the green locks of the water-ranunculuses are lifted by the stream, and their flowers form snowy islands on the surface; the water-lilies spread out their leaves upon it, like the palettes of fairy painters; and that opposite bank, what a prodigal scene of vigorous and abundant vegetation it is. there are the blue geraniums, as lovely as ever; the meadow-sweet is hastening to put out its foam-like flowers, that species of golden-flowered mustard occupies the connecting space between the land and water; and hare-bells, the jagged pink lychnis, and flowering grass of various kinds, make the whole bank beautiful. every plant that is wont to shew itself at this season, is in its place, to give its quota of the accustomed character to the spot; every insect, to beautify it with its hues, and enliven it with its peculiar sound:—
there is the grashopper, my summer friend,—
the minute sound of many a sunny hour
passed on a thymy hill, when i could send
my soul in search thereof by bank and bower,
till lured far from it by a foxglove flower,
nodding too dangerously above the crag,
not to excite the passion and the power
to climb the steep, and down the blossom drag:—
them the marsh-crocus joined, and yellow water-flag.
shrill sings the drowsy wassailer in his dome,
yon grassy wilderness, where curls the fern,
and creeps the ivy; with the wish to roam
he spreads his sails, and bright is his sojourn,
’mid chalices with dews in every urn;
all flying things a like delight have found—
where’er i gaze, to what new region turn,
ten thousand insects in the air abound,
flitting on glancing wings that yield a summer’s sound.
wiffen’s aonian hours.
[163]
the may-flies, in thousands, are come forth to their little day of life, and are flying up, and dropping again in their own peculiar way. the stone-fly is found head downwards on the bole of that tree. the midges are celebrating their airy and labyrinthine dances with an amazing adroitness. these little creatures pass through a metamorphosis, as they settle on you in your summer walks by river sides, that must strike the careful observer with admiration. you may sometimes see a column of them by the margin of the river, like a column of smoke; and when you come near, numbers of them will settle upon your clothes—small, white, and fleecy creatures. observe them carefully, and you will see them shake their wings, as in a little convulsive agony, press them to the sides of their body, and fairly creep out of their skins. these skins, fine white films, drawn like a glove from their bodies, and from their very legs, which are but like fine hairs themselves, they leave behind, and dart off into the air as to a new life, and with an accession of new beauty. dragon-flies of all sizes and colours are hovering, and skimming, and settling amongst the water-plants, or on some natural twig, evidently full of enjoyment. the great azure-bodied one, with its filmy wings, darts past with reckless speed; and slender ones—blue and purple, and dun, and black, with long jointed bodies, made as of shining silk by the fingers of some fair lady, and animated for a week or two of summer sunshine by some frolic spell, now pursue each other, and now rest as in sleep. the whitethroat goes flying with a curious cowering motion over the top of the tall grass from one bush to another, where it hops unseen, and repeats its favourite “chaw-chaw.” the willow-warbler, the mocking-bird of england, maintains its incessant imitations of the swallow, the sparrow, the chaffinch, and the whitethroat, flitting and chattering in the bushes that overhang the stream. the landrail repeats its continuous “crake-crake” from the meadow grass, and the water itself ripples on, clear and musical, and chequered with small shadows from many a leaf and bent and moving bough. we lift up our heads—and in the west what a ruby sun—what a gorgeous assemblage of sunset clouds!
readers and friends, are these not the characters of june fields and june brook-sides? do they not recal to your memory many a[164] pleasant walk, many a pleasant place, and many pleasant friends? they must: for there is nothing gives us so vivid a sense of the careering of time as the passing of spring and summer.
