But now the quiet days of September are come. September, which is the Twilight of the year—rather, I would call it the first hint of twilight, when the flush and glow are sobering down, and a cast of thoughtfulness is deepening day by day upon the months. “Autumn has o’erbrimmed the clammy cells” of the bees; the fields, where the long rows of many sheaves stand, gradually grow bare; the intensely dark summer green of the elms and of the hedgerows out of which they rise, is interrupted here and there by a tenderer tinge; the spruce firs in the copses begin to appear more dark, distinct, and particular; the larches begin to show faint hearts, and to look more delicate beside their sombre brothers. There is rather the augury, the prescience, than the perceived presence of a change. I have fancied sometimes that the trees have plotted together and banded themselves by an agreement not to give in, this time, but to defy the utmost power of stripping, desolating Winter. And it is curious, with this idea, to watch them. Throughout September, they at least keep up appearances well, and from one to another the watchword is whispered,—
“Keep a good heart, O trees, and hold
The Winter stern at bay!”
and for a time they moult no feather, drop no leaf; or, if one circles down here and there, it is huddled by in a corner, and they flatter themselves that none has noticed. But you watch with pitying love, knowing what the end must be. And you perceive how great the effort, the strain, becomes, to keep up appearances. Here and there, at last, despite of their utmost endeavour, the hidden fire bursts out; and finally, with a wild Autumnal wail, some weaker tree, in despair, gives up the unnatural and too excessive strain, and casts down a great profusion of yellow sickly foliage. There is a murmur among the stouter trees; but, in good truth, they are not sorry for the excuse, while, muttering that all is rendered useless now, like avowed bankrupts, they give up the effort to sustain appearances, and, as it were, with a sigh of relief and rest, resign them to the fate they vainly strove against and could not long avert. So the elm flames out into bars and patches, very yellow in the dark; and the chesnut is all tinged and burnt with brown; and the mulberry has slipped off all her leaves in a single night; and the ash and the sycamore blacken; and the white poplar leaves change to pale gold; and the pear to bronze; and the wild cherry to scarlet; and the maple to orange; and the bramble at their feet to bright crimson.
Not so yet, in the Twilight of the year. It is the month of tranquillity, of peaceful hush. If there be a hint of decay, it is but what has been called “calm decay”; it is but evening with the landscape, the Evening of the year. You might forget, as you looked at the resting stationary aspect of things, that the further change, the Night of Winter, was indeed drawing near. There seems no prophecy of those wild tossing October arms, with the stream of leaves hurrying away in the wind; no presage of the dull November days, when, from the scanty foliage of the trees, great drops plash down upon the decaying leaves beneath, and the whole wood looms out of the fog. Far less, in the full-bosomed, sober, rather air- than mist-mellowed woodlands, do you detect any foretelling of the time when all will stand, a bare thicket of gaunt boughs and naked twigs, dully shadowed in the ice, or made darker and more dreary by the great white fields of snow.
Of all this there is no hint given yet, nor need we yet awake to the knowledge that we have indeed bid the Summer farewell till next year. The evenings are still warm, warm with that cool warmth which is so delicious: it will be some time yet before we can see our breath as we talk: we can stay out well until eight or later, and hear through the open window the clatter of arranging tea-cups, and watch the lamp, still faint in the twilight, warm the room with a dim orange glow.
Therefore I shall sit here awhile on this garden seat, and muse in and upon the twilight. The scene and place are favourable for quiet thought. The lawn is smooth and shaven; at my feet lie beds of profuse geranium, verbena, calceolaria, petunia, in their rich Autumn prime, before any hint of frost has visited them. The air is quite heavy with the scent of the massed heliotrope. The colours, if sobered, are not yet lost in the fading light; the scarlets and purples are hushing and blending; the cherry colour, yellow, and white, have grown more distinct, and stand out more apparent upon the grass. Overhead, the sky is deepening to that dusk steel blue which soon discloses the very faint yet eye-catching glimmer of one white star. Across the quiet dome, and between the still, outstretched, motionless branches, the silent bats flit to and fro; there is a rustle of chafers in the lime. One sweet melancholy monotonous sound gives a background to the silence, an undertone that enhances, not in the least disturbs, the quiet. For the great charm of this garden, which lies on the slope of a hill, is, that near the foot of that hill swells and fails the ever-moving Sea. And looking from my garden seat through the near rose-bushes and above the taller growth lower down the slope, I see the broad silver shield, rising, as it seems to me on my hill-seat, up the circle of its horizon. An hour ago I was admiring the brilliancy and intensity of its colour, green shoaling into blue, and sparkling in the sun; now the faint light of the broad moon shares the sway of the decaying sunlight; and I see above and through the branches a space of pale bright grey. The jewel blue of afternoon has died out from it, but the more neutral tint accords better, I feel, with the sober hour and hushed sounds of twilight. How complete is the harmony and the balance of colour in all God’s pictures!