“The pillared dusk of sounding sycamores.”
The brave oaks, soon passing out of their Chaucerian attire,
“Some very red, and some a glad light green,”
and now all gnarled and knotted, and only clutching still a wisp of pale dull dry leaves here and there:—all these, be sure, have had their meed of attention and of regard from me. And so I sit under the bare boughs with no remorseful if with some regretful feelings. But still, I say, who can look up at the stripped branches in the Winter without sometimes giving fancy and memory leave to clothe them again with the fair frail dreams and hopes and enjoyments that, though they were evanescent, yet were beautiful, and that, though passing away with the Summer of Time, yet no doubt have influenced the Eternal growth of the Tree. Yes, sometimes it will be graceful, and at least not harmful, to let memory wander back into the days of childhood and of youth, and bid the frail and inexperienced foliage cover the branches again with that rich but short-lived beauty:
“Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,
And phantom hopes assemble;
And that child’s heart within the man’s
Begins to move and tremble.”
Aye, there they are again, for a moment, shimmering in the sunlight and in the shade, “clapping their little hands in glee.” But we start, and they are gone. And, instead, how clearly we may see the blue Sky through the stripped boughs!
* * * * *
I remember, some time ago, sitting under some sycamore trees, near the sea-side. Of course those trees are all bare now, but the leaves were then at the fall. It was just at that time of the year when all the sweeping in the world will not keep the lawn tidy, and every gust littered it with the crisp, curled leaves. Amid this surely advancing decay there was, however, a pathetic effort towards renovation and new life. The year could hardly yet quietly acquiesce in the truth that its once exuberant power of growth was over, and that it must give in to stagnation increasing to decay. The like of this we may trace in the human year: in the faded Beauty; in the worn-out Author and Wit; and there is always a sadness about the sight. Under the nearly black leaves some very yellow-green ones were clustering upon the lower shoots; a late frond or two bent timidly amid the burnt and battered growth of the fernery; autumn crocuses came like ghosts upon the rich moist beds, but fell prone with an overmastering weakness; one gleam of laburnum drooped, and two white clusters of pear-blossom tried to ignore the heavy mellowing fruit; and some frail crumpled bramble-bloom appeared among the blackberries; tenderest and most touching, but wildest and most abortive endeavour, a primrose, too pale even for that pale flower, started up here and there out of the long draggled, ragged leaves. I know that many days ago winter must have frightened away all this frail gathering, the more easily and suddenly, because of their weakness and timidity. But I took pleasure in watching and moralising upon the impotent yet graceful struggle. And then, I recall, I sat down under the trees, much as I do now, and in much such a day. The flickering spots of faint sunlight moved slowly on the sward: the day was calm, after a wild windy Summer. It was cool for Autumn as this is warm for Winter, and so the two days were near akin, except for this one difference, that the leaves were mostly still upon the trees. They had begun in good earnest to fall, but they were still left in considerable numbers upon the boughs. And I fell, after some unconscious watching these leaves, into a fit of musing upon them. There was a peculiarity about them all which caught my attention. Let me set down, under these bare boughs, some of my thoughts at that time. It can be done the less unkindly now that that generation of leaves has all, some weeks ago, fluttered away.
The peculiarity was this. The trees being within the scope of many contending and fierce and unremitting winds, there was not upon any twig, that I could see, one single perfect leaf. Perhaps a young one, just born, and to die almost as soon as born, might keep somewhat of its intended shape. But those that had endured the fierce winds and the heat and the rain and the blights,—ah, how shattered and scarred and stained they were! Some marred out of any trace of the intention of their birth; rent and beaten into a sorry strip, hardly to be called a leaf at all. But even the best were defaced and disfigured, spotted and imperfect.