And then, even in a lonely hour, a time of dulness and depression, a time when this sad life seemed saddest; in such a time even, that glad gleeful yellow landscape would come back, with something of the light and joy of a kind deed done, or a strong word said; and, amid the pale snow, and the ever-increasing depression, well can the possessor say that—then,
“Then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”
Life has its May-days, as well as the year. They come, sometimes; rarely to some, but exquisitely beautiful when God sends them—the May-days of the soul. The times when the Winter fogs have passed away, and the clear sun shines down in its glory on the land; the times when the bare brown trees have become ruddy, and have then flushed into crowded variety of leaf; the times when the flowers, that had been thought to be buried for ever, dawn like a smile upon earth’s pale and furrowed face; the times when youth’s forgotten glow comes back, and a hint of the vigour to which dreams seemed realities, and impossibilities possible, stirs the sluggish sap of the soul. Such times there are, when the mists of November have departed, and the frosts of the succeeding months, and the bitter winds of March, and the flooding tears of April; it is the May, with its lavish promise and exuberant life, and ecstatic beauty! Times when illness or earth or laziness or lack of power no longer chill the soul that is indeed eager to burst into leaf; times when we are winged, when the hardest toils are easy to us, the heaviest stone rolled away; times when soul and body seem in perfect accord, and tongue and limb and eye instantly execute the least mandate of the ruler within; times when the ship obeys the lightest touch of the man at the helm; times that come like holidays scattered through the dull half-year of school-days; times of exuberant life and spirits and powers that visit us rarely, sweetly, now and then, as May-day comes in the year.
I often think how little we use life thoroughly; how little we really live our life; how seldom we are in the humour to carry out its great and solemn purposes: how we let its opportunities fly by us, like thistledown on the wind. Why are we not always denying ourselves, taking up the cross, and following our Master? Why are we not always on the watch for every occasion in which a word may be said, or a deed done, or a thought thought, that shall be a protest for Christ, in this vain and sinful world? Why is God’s love but a rare Wintry gleam, and never a steady Summer in our soul? Think, for instance, of such a thing as Prayer; what a wonderful and beautiful thing it is! To kneel, an atom in creation, at the Throne of the Almighty! To be able to bare our hearts to Him, and to feel sure that the least throbs, as well as the great spasms, are perfectly appreciated, felt, understood, sympathised with, by that awful, loving Mind!
And yet, how Wintry our hearts are in our prayers! how seldom they burst into exuberant flower! how constantly the sky above us seems pale and heavy, and dull and impenetrable, and our hearts beneath abiding in their Wintry sleep! Or a snowdrop here and there wanders out, and now and then a pinched primrose—not enough for even the poorest garland.
But that is not all; not only in religion is it that we are more often Wintry-hearted than May-hearted. I have heard of an artist who used sometimes to keep his sitter waiting a whole morning, and at last send him away, unable to win the right humour to his heart, and feeling that his work would not be well done if he forced it. And in reading Haydon’s life you may often find traces of how difficult is this mood to attract, when it has not a mind to come.
So, too, in composition, whether grave or light, how different a thing it is, according to our mood! How delicious a thing is it when the soul has a May-day, and when the pen cannot overtake the mind! when
“Thought leaps out to wed with thought,
Ere thought can wed itself with speech!”
when ideas throng
“Glad and thick,
As leaves upon a tree in primrose time!”