Agreeably to the method I have adopted, of enriching these discussions with poetical description, I shall here present my readers with the most striking parts of a summer's day, which, not to multiply quotations, I shall select only from the poet of the Seasons.
When now no more th' alternate Twins are fired,
And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the Night,
And soon, observant of approaching Day,
The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east:
And, from before the lustre of her face,
White break the clouds away. With quickened step,
Brown Night retires: Young Day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top,
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, thro' the dusk, the smoking currents shine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps, awkward: while along the forest glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes
The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
But yonder comes the powerful King of Day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain brow
Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach
Bewoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and coloured air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad;
And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays
On rocks and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,
High gleaming from afar.
Now, flaming up the heavens, the potent Sun
Melts into limpid air the high-raised clouds,
And morning fogs, that hovered round the hills
In party-coloured bands; till wide unveiled
The face of Nature shines, from where earth seems,
Får stretched around, to meet the bending sphere.
Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the Sun
Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.
O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye
Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all,
From pole to pole, is undistinguished blaze.
In vain the sight, dejected to the ground,
Stoops for relief; thence hot ascending steams
And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root
Of vegetation parched, the cleaving fields
And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose,
Blast Fancy's blooms, and wither e'en the soul.
Echo no more returns the cheerful sound
Of sharpening sithe; the mower sinking heaps
O'er him the humid hay, with flowers perfumed;
And scarce a chirping grasshopper is heard
Thro' the dumb mead. Distressful Nature pants.
The very streams look languid from afar;
Or, thro' th' unsheltered glade, impatient, seem
To hurl into the covert of the grove.
The Sun has lost his rage! His downward orb
Shoots nothing now but animating warmth,
And vital lustre; that, with various ray,
Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of heaven,
Incessant rolled into romantic shapes,
The dream of waking Fancy! Broad below,
Covered with ripening fruits, and swelling fast
Into the perfect year, the pregnant earth
And all her tribes rejoice. Now the soft hour
Of walking comes; for him who lonely loves
To seek the distant hills, and there converse
With Nature.
Low walks the Sun, and broadens by degrees,
Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds
Assembled gay, a richly-gorgeous train,
In all their pomp attend his setting throne.
Air, earth, and ocean smile immense. And now,
As if his weary chariot sought the bowers
Of Amphitrite and her tending nymphs
(So Grecian fable sung) he dips his orb;
Now half immersed; and now a golden curve
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.
Confessed from yonder slow-extinguished clouds,
All ether softening, sober Evening takes
Her wonted station in the middle air,
A thousand shadows at her beck.
She sends on earth; then that of deeper die
Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still,
In circle following circle, gathers round,
To close the face of things. A fresher gale
Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream,
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn;
While the quail clamours for his running mate.
Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,
A whitening shower of vegetable down
Amusive floats. The kind impartial care
Of Nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year,
From field to field the feathered seed she wings'.
Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge,
The glowworm lights his gem; and, thro' the dark
A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields
The world to Night; not in her winter robe
Of massy Stygian woof, but loose arrayed
In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray,
Glanced from th' imperfect surfaces of things,
1 The late lamented KIRKE WHITE has pencilled the 'Summer's Eve' with great truth and delicacy :
Down the sultry arc of day
The burning wheels have urged their way,
And Eve, along the western skies,
Sheds her intermingling dyes.
Down the deep, the miry lane,
Creeking comes the empty wain,
And driver on the shaft-horse sits,
Whistling now and then by fits;
And oft, with his accustomed call,
Urging on the sluggish Ball.
The barn is still, the master's gone,
And thrasher puts his jacket on;
Flings half an image on the straining eye;
While wavering woods, and villages, and streams,
And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retained
Th' ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,
Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to heaven
Thence weary vision turns; where, leading soft
The silent hours of love, with purest ray
Sweet Venus shines; and from her genial rise,
When daylight sickens till it springs afresh
Unrivalled reigns the fairest lamp of night.1
These principal parts of a summer's day, but more particularly morning, evening, and night, have been the favourite theme of poets, from the most remote antiquity. Each has something picturesque and beautiful that affects every sense with unspeakable pleasure; particularly the sight, which is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses: which fills the mind with the greatest variety of ideas; converses with its objects at the remotest distance: and continues the longest in action without being
While Dick upon the ladder tall
Nails the dead kite to the wall.
Here comes shepherd Jack at last,
He has penned the sheep-cote fast,
For 'twas but two nights before
A lamb was eaten on the moor;
His empty wallet Rover carries,
Nor for Jack, when near home, tarries;
With lolling tongue he runs to try
If the horse-trough is not dry.
The milk is settled in the pans,
And supper messes in the cans;
In the hovel, carts are wheeled,
And both the colts are drove a-field;
The horses all are bedded up,
And the ewe is with the tup.
The snare for Mister Fox is set,
The leaven laid, the thatching wet;
And Bess has slinked away to talk
With Roger in the holly walk.
1 See Reflections on a Moonlight Scene, in No. xxii.
tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. Beside the glowing colours of the flowers, and the still enlivening verdure of the woods, the eye beholds an innumerable quantity of fruits, which, by virtue of the secret laws of Nature, grow in our fields and gardens, and which, after thus delighting the sense of vision, may be gathered and preserved, to contribute to our subsistence. The flowers present to our senses the most agreeable diversity: we not only admire the richness of their attire, but the fecundity of Nature in the numberless species of them. What variety too, what beauty in every plant, from the lowly moss to the towering oak! If we wander from flower to flower, the eye is still unsatiated with the view. If we ascend the highest mountains, pierce into the midnight depth of the groves, or descend into the spacious vale, we discover new beauties spread around in wonderful profusion. Of the infinity of objects that strike the eye, each is different from the other; but each has in itself sufficient beauty to attract and to fix our attention: yonder a distant prospect, terminated by a beautiful horizon; here the rich and variegated landscape: there herds of cattle and flocks of sheep; here flowers and plants, beyond the power of botanist to number up their tribes.' If we lift up our eyes, we behold the blue concave, refulgent and serene. Adverting to the landscape around, the eye, just dazzled by celestial radiance, is cheered again by the bright
Nor is the sense of hearing unaffected by the universal charm; it is still enraptured by the music of the woods. The murmurings too of the brook, or of the silver waves which the river rolls in its majestic course, are pleasing to the ear. The taste is gratified by the early fruits that ripen in this season, and which, exclusive of their pleasing flavour, have the most cooling salutary virtues. The sense of
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