There is a beautiful, sloping acre, not far from Oxford, which a number of great elms divide into aisles and nave, while at one end a curving hawthorn and maple hedge completes them with an apse. Towards Oxford, the space is almost shut in by remote elms. On one side I hear the soft and sibilant fall of soaking grass before the scythe. The rain and sun alternating are like two lovers in dialogue; the rain smiles from the hills when the sun shines, and the sun also while the rain is falling. When the rain is not over and the sun has interrupted, the nightingale sings, where the stitchwort is starry amidst long grass that bathes the sweeping branches of thorn and brier; and I am now stabbed, and now caressed, by its changing song. Through the elms on either side, hot, rank grasses rise, crowned with a vapour of parsley flowers. A white steam from the soil faintly mists the grass at intervals. The grass and elms seem to be suffering in the rain, suffering for their quietness and solitude, to be longing for something, as perhaps Eden also dropped “some natural tears” when left a void. A potent, warm, and not quite soothing[Pg 490][Pg 489]
OXFORD, FROM SOUTH HINKSEY
Elms and willow trees fringe the slope of the hills leading to the valley, in which the city shows sparkling in the morning sunlight.
Commencing from the west or left side of the picture, we see the tower and lantern of All Saints’, with the dome of the Radcliffe Library telling dark against the sky; then come the University Church of St. Mary, Tom Tower, and the stretch of buildings of Christ Church, with the Great Hall of the College, the Cathedral spire finishing the group.
Merton Tower stands detached to the east.
The almost level line of the horizon, with the trees bordering the river to Iffley, frame as beautiful a group of buildings as any to be seen in England.
Farm sheds show under the willow trees to the left.
The time is the early morning of a summer day.