SEPTEMBER.
The harvest-men ring Summer out
With thankful song, and joyous shout;
And, when September comes, they hail
The Autumn with the flapping flail.
*
This besides being named “gerst-monat” by the Anglo-Saxons,[328] they also called haligemonath, or the “holy-month,” from an ancient festival held at this season of the year. A Saxon menology, or register of the months, (in Wanley’s addition to Hickes,) mentions it under that denomination, and gives its derivation in words which are thus literally translated “haligemonath—for that our forefathers, the while they heathens were, on this month celebrated their devil-gild.” To inquire concerning an exposition which appears so much at variance with this old name, is less requisite than to take a calm survey of the month itself.
I at my window sit, and see
Autumn his russet fingers lay
On every leaf of every tree;
I call, but summer will not stay.
She flies, the boasting goddess flies,
And, pointing where espaliers shoot,
Deserve my parting gift, she cries,
I take the leaves, but not the fruit.
Still, at this season—
The rainbow comes and goes,
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;—
But yet we know, where’er we go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
“I am sorry to mention it,” says the author of the Mirror of the Months, “but the truth must be told even in a matter of age. The year then is on the wane. It is ‘declining into the vale’ of months. It has reached ‘a certain age.’—It has reached the summit of the hill, and is not only looking, but descending, into the valley below. But, unlike that into which the life of man declines, this is not a vale of tears; still less does it, like that, lead to that inevitable bourne, the kingdom of the grave. For though it may be called (I hope without the semblance of profanation) ‘the valley of the shadow of death,’ yet of death itself it knows nothing. No—the year steps onward towards its temporary decay, if not so rejoicingly, even more majestically and gracefully, than it does towards its revivification. And if September is not so bright with promise, and so buoyant with hope, as May, it is even more embued with that spirit of serene repose, in which the only true, because the only continuous enjoyment consists. Spring ‘never is, but always to be blest;’ but September is the month of consummations—the fulfiller of all promises—the fruition of all hopes—the era of all completeness.
“The sunsets of September in this country are perhaps unrivalled, for their infinite variety, and their indescribable beauty. Those of more southern countries may, perhaps, match or even surpass them, for a certain glowing and unbroken intensity. But for gorgeous variety of form and colour, exquisite delicacy of tint and pencilling, and a certain placid sweetness and tenderness of general effect, which frequently arises out of a union of the two latter, there is nothing to be seen like what we can show in England at this season of the year. If a painter, who was capable of doing it to the utmost perfection, were to dare depict on canvas one out of twenty of the sunsets that we frequently have during this month, he would be laughed at for his pains. And the reason is, that people judge of pictures by pictures. They compare Hobbima with Ruysdael, and Ruysdael with Wynants, and Wynants with Wouvermans, and Wouvermans with Potter, and Potter with Cuyp; and then they think the affair can proceed no farther. And the chances are, that if you were to show one of the sunsets in question to a thorough-paced connoisseur in this department of fine art, he would reply, that it was very beautiful, to be sure, but that he must beg to doubt whether it was natural, for he had never seen one like it in any of the old masters!”
In the “Poetical Calendar” there is the following address “to Mr. Hayman,” probably Francis Hayman, the painter of Vauxhall-gardens, who is known to us all, through early editions of several of our good authors, “with copper-plates, designed by Mr. Hayman.”
An Autumnal Ode.
Yet once more, glorious God of day,
While beams thine orb serene,
O let me warbling court thy stay
To gild the fading scene!
Thy rays invigorate the spring,
Bright summer to perfection bring,
The cold inclemency of winter cheer,
And make th’ autumnal months the mildest of the year.
Ere yet the russet foliage fall
I’ll climb the mountain’s brow,
My friend, my Hayman, at thy call,
To view the scene below:
How sweetly pleasing to behold
Forests of vegetable gold!
How mix’d the many chequer’d shades between
The tawny, mellowing hue, and the gay vivid green!
How splendid all the sky! how still!
How mild the dying gale!
How soft the whispers of the rill,
That winds along the vale!
So tranquil nature’s works appear,
It seems the sabbath of the year:
As if, the summer’s labour past, she chose
This season’s sober calm for blandishing repose.
Such is of well-spent life the time,
When busy days are past;
Man, verging gradual from his prime,
Meets sacred peace at last:
His flowery spring of pleasures o’er,
And summer’s full-bloom pride no more,
He gains pacific autumn, mild and bland,
And dauntless braves the stroke of winter’s palsied hand.
For yet a while, a little while,
Involv’d in wintry gloom,
And lo! another spring shall smile,
A spring eternal bloom:
Then shall he shine, a glorious guest,
In the bright mansions of the blest,
Where due rewards on virtue are bestow’d,
And reap’d the golden fruits of what his autumn sow’d.
It is remarked by the gentleman-usher of the year, that “the fruit garden is one scene of tempting profusion.
“Against the wall, the grapes have put on that transparent look which indicates their complete ripeness, and have dressed their cheeks in that delicate bloom which enables them to bear away the bell of beauty from all their rivals. The peaches and nectarines have become fragrant, and the whole wall where they hang is ‘musical with bees.’ Along the espaliers, the rosy-cheeked apples look out from among their leaves, like laughing children peeping at each other through screens of foliage; and the young standards bend their straggling boughs to the earth with the weight of their produce.
“Let us not forget to add, that there is one part of London which is never out of season, and is never more in season than now. Covent-garden market is still the garden of gardens; and as there is not a month in all the year in which it does not contrive to belie something or other that has been said in the foregoing pages, as to the particular season of certain flowers, fruits, &c., so now it offers the flowers and the fruits of every season united. How it becomes possessed of all these, I shall not pretend to say: but thus much I am bound to add by way of information,—that those ladies and gentlemen who have country-houses in the neighbourhood of Clapham-common or Camberwell-grove, may now have the pleasure of eating the best fruit out of their own gardens—provided they choose to pay the price of it in Covent-garden market.”[329]
The observer of nature, where nature can alone be fully enjoyed, will perceive, that, in this month, “among the birds, we have something like a renewal of the spring melodies. In particular, the thrush and blackbird, who have been silent for several weeks, recommence their songs,—bidding good bye to the summer, in the same subdued tone in which they hailed her approach—wood-owls hoot louder than ever; and the lambs bleat shrilly from the hill-side to their neglectful dams; and the thresher’s flail is heard from the unseen barn; and the plough-boy’s whistle comes through the silent air from the distant upland; and snakes leave their last year’s skins in the brakes—literally creeping out at their own mouths; and acorns drop in showers from the oaks, at every wind that blows; and hazel-nuts ask to be plucked, so invitingly do they look forth from their green dwellings; and, lastly, the evenings close in too quickly upon the walks to which their serene beauty invites us, and the mornings get chilly, misty, and damp.”
Finally, “another singular sight belonging to this period, is the occasional showers of gossamer that fall from the upper regions of the air, and cover every thing like a veil of woven silver. You may see them descending through the sunshine, and glittering and flickering in it, like rays of another kind of light. Or if you are in time to observe them before the sun has dried the dew from off them in the early morning, they look like robes of fairy tissue-work, gemmed with innumerable jewels.”[330]
September.
An Ode.
Farewell the pomp of Flora! vivid scene!
Welcome sage Autumn, to invert the year—
Farewell to summer’s eye-delighted green!
Her verdure fades—autumnal blasts are near.
The silky wardrobe now is laid aside,
With all the rich regalia of her pride.
And must we bid sweet Philomel adieu?
She that was wont to charm us in the grove?
Must Nature’s livery wear a sadder hue,
And a dark canopy be stretch’d above?
Yes—for September mounts his ebon throne,
And the smooth foliage of the plain is gone.
Libra, to weigh the harvest’s pearly store,
The golden balance poizes now on high,
The calm serenity of Zephyr o’er,
Sol’s glittering legions to th’ equator fly,
At the same hour he shows his orient head,
And, warn’d by Thetis, sinks in Ocean’s bed.
Adieu! ye damask roses, which remind
The maiden fair-one, how her charms decay;
Ye rising blasts, oh! leave some mark behind,
Some small memorial of the sweets of May;
Ah! no—the ruthless season will not hear,
Nor spare one glory of the ruddy year.
No more the waste of music sung so late
From every bush, green orchestre of love,
For now their winds the birds of passage wait,
And bid a last farewell to every grove;
While those, whom shepherd-swains the sleepers call,
Choose their recess in some sequester’d wall.
Yet still shall sage September boast his pride,
Some birds shall chant, some gayer flowers shall blow,
Nor is the season wholly unallied
To purple bloom; the haler fruits shall grow,
The stronger plants, such as enjoy the cold,
And wear a livelier grace by being old.