I speak of a season when the returning threats of cold and the resisting warmth of summer time, make robust mirth in the air; when the winds imitate on a sudden the vehemence of winter; and silver-white clouds are abrupt in their coming down and shadows on the grass chase one another, panting, over the fields, like a pursuit of spirits. With undulating necks they pant forward, like hounds or the leopard.
See! the cloud is after the light, gliding over the country like the shadow of a god; and now the meadows are lit up here and there with sunshine, as if the soul of Titian were standing in heaven, and playing his fancies on them. Green are the trees in shadow; but the trees in the sun how twenty-fold green they are--rich and variegated with gold!"
One of the many exquisite out-of-doors enjoyments for the observers of nature, is the sight of an English harvest. How cheering it is to behold the sickles flashing in the sun, as the reapers with well sinewed arm, and with a sweeping movement, mow down the close-arrayed ranks of the harvest field! What are "the rapture of the strife" and all the "pomp, pride and circumstance of glorious war," that bring death to some and agony and grief to others, compared with the green and golden trophies of the honest Husbandman whose bloodless blade makes no wife a widow, no child an orphan,--whose office is not to spread horror and desolation through shrieking cities, but to multiply and distribute the riches of nature over a smiling land.
But let us quit the open fields for a time, and turn again to the flowery retreats of
Retired Leisure
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.
In all ages, in all countries, in all creeds, a garden is represented as the scene not only of earthly but of celestial enjoyment. The ancients had their Elysian Fields and the garden of the Hesperides, the Christian has his Garden of Eden, the Mahommedan his Paradise of groves and flowers and crystal fountains and black eyed Houries.
"God Almighty," says Lord Bacon, "first planted a garden; and indeed it is the purest of all pleasures: it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man." Bacon, though a utilitarian philosopher, was such a lover of flowers that he was never satisfied unless he saw them in almost every room of his house, and when he came to discourse of them in his Essays, his thoughts involuntarily moved harmonious numbers. How naturally the following prose sentence in Bacon's Essay on Gardens almost resolves itself into verse.
"For the heath which was the first part of our plot, I wish it to be framed as much as may be to a natural wildness. Trees I would have none in it, but some thickets made only of sweet briar and honeysuckle, and some wild vine amongst; and the ground set with violets, strawberries and primroses; for these are sweet, and prosper in the shade."
"For the heath which was the third part of our plot--
I wish it to be framed
As much as may be to a natural wildness.
Trees I'd have none in't, but some thickets made
Only of sweet-briar and honey-suckle,
And some wild vine amongst; and the ground set
With violets, strawberries, and primroses;
For these are sweet and prosper in the shade."
It has been observed that the love of gardens is the only passion which increases with age. It is generally the most indulged in the two extremes of life. In middle age men are often too much involved in the affairs of the busy world fully to appreciate the tranquil pleasures in the gift of Flora. Flowers are the toys of the young and a source of the sweetest and serenest enjoyments for the old. But there is no season of life for which they are unfitted and of which they cannot increase the charm.