The Life of the Fields | Page 8

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 footpath, and teazle-heads look over the low hedges. Brake-fern
rises five feet high; in some way woodpeckers are associated with
brake, and there seem more of them where it flourishes. Ifyou count the
depth and strength of its roots in the loamy sand, add the thickness of
its flattened 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.
There are minute white flowers on the top of the wall, out of reach, and
lichen grows against it dried by the sun till 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.
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 beneath them again refined. There
was a presence everywhere though unseen, 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
spreading 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 bullfinch pipes now and then further up the hedge where the
brambles and thorns are thickest. Boldest of birds to look at, he 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