Pageant of Summer

The Pageant of Summer, by
Richard Jefferies

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Jefferies
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Title: The Pageant of Summer
Author: Richard Jefferies

Release Date: January 18, 2007 [eBook #414]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
PAGEANT OF SUMMER***

Transcribed from the 1914 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price,
email [email protected]

THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER
BY RICHARD JEFFERIES
LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1914

I.
Green rushes, long and thick, standing 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 from that of grass or leaves.
Rising from brown sheaths, the tall stems enlarged a little in the middle,
like classical 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; some of the sweetness of the air had
entered into their fibres, and the rushes--the common rushes--were full
of beautiful 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.
Something 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

supports. 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 red-wings 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 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 wood 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
sunshine was borne along and breathed. Steeped in flower and pollen to
the music of bees and birds, the stream of the atmosphere 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 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