The most appropriate spots in which first to watch the footsteps of Summer are amid “the pomp of Groves, and garniture of Fields.” There let us seek her, then.
To saunter, at mid June, beneath the shade of some old forest, situated in the neighbourhood of a great town, so that paths are worn through it, and you can make your way with ease in any direction, gives one the idea of being transferred, by some strange magic, from the surface of the earth to the bottom of the sea! (I say it gives one this idea; for I cannot answer for more, in matters of so arbitrary a nature as the association of ideas). Over head, and round about, you hear the sighing, the whispering, or the roaring (as the wind pleases) of a thousand billows; and looking upward, you see the light of heaven transmitted faintly, as if through a mass of green waters. Hither and thither, as you move along, strange forms flit swiftly about you, which may, for any thing you can see or hear to the contrary, be exclusive natives of the new world in which your fancy chooses to find itself: they may be fishes, if that pleases; for they are as mute as such, and glide through the liquid element as swiftly. Now and then, indeed, one of larger growth, and less lubricated movements, lumbers up from beside your path, and cluttering noisily away to a little distance, may chance to scare for a moment your sub-marine reverie. Your palate too may perhaps here step in, and try to persuade you that the cause of interruption was not a fish but a pheasant. But in fact, if your fancy is one of those which are disposed to “listen to reason,” it will not be able to lead you into spots of the above kind without your gun in your hand,—one report of which will put all fancies to flight in a moment, as well as every thing else that has wings. To return, therefore, to our walk,—what do all these strange objects look like, that stand silently about us in the dim twilight, some spiring straight up, and tapering as they ascend, till they lose themselves in the green waters above—some shattered and splintered, leaning against each other for support, or lying heavily on the floor on which we walk—some half buried in that floor, as if they had lain dead there for ages, and become incorporate with it; what do all these seem, but wrecks and fragments of some mighty vessel, that has sunk down here from above, and lain weltering and wasting away, till these are all that is left of it! Even the floor itself on which we stand, and the vegetation it puts forth, are unlike those of any other portion of the earth’s surface, and may well recall, by their strange appearance in the half light, the fancies that have come upon us when we have read or dreamt of those gifted beings, who, like Ladurlad in Kehama, could walk on the floor of the sea, without waiting, as the visitors at Watering-places are obliged to do, for the tide to go out.
“But why,” exclaims the reasonable reader, “detain us, at a time of year like this, among fancies and associations, when facts and realities a thousand times more lovely are waiting to be recorded?” He is right, and I bow to the reproof; only I must escape at once from the old Forest into which I had inadvertently wandered; for there I shall not be able to remain a moment fancy-free.
Stepping forth, then, into the open fields, what a bright pageant of Summer beauty is spread out before us! We are standing, you perceive, on a little eminence, every point of which presents some particular offering of the season, and from which we can also look abroad upon those which require a more distant and general gaze. Everywhere about our feet flocks of Wild-Flowers
“Do paint the meadow with delight.”
We must not stay to pluck and particularize them; for most of them have already had their greeting from us in the two preceding months; and though they insist on repeating themselves during this, they must not expect us to do the same, to the exclusion of others whose claims are newer and not less noticeable. That we may duly attend to these latter, let us pass along beside this flourishing Hedge-row, that skirts the Wood from which we have just emerged.
The first novelty of the Season that greets us here is perhaps the sweetest, the freshest, and fairest of all, and the only one that could supply an adequate substitute for the Hawthorn bloom which it has superseded. Need the Eglantine be named? the “sweet-leaved Eglantine;” the “rain-scented Eglantine;” Eglantine—to which the Sun himself pays homage, by “counting his dewy rosary” on it every morning; Eglantine—which Chaucer, and even Shakespeare—but hold—let me again insist on the Poets not being permitted to set their feet even within the porticos of these pleasant papers; for if once they do, good bye to the control of the rightful owner! I did but invite Mr. Wordsworth in, two months ago, as the reader may remember, just to say a few words in favour of the Daisy, in pure gratitude for his having made it a sort of sin to tread on one,—and lo! there was no getting him out again, till he had poured forth two or three pages full of stanzas, touching that one “wee, modest, crimson-tipped Flower!” Besides, what need have we for the aid of Poets (I mean the Poets, so called par excellence) when in the actual presence of that Nature which made them such, and can make us such too, if any thing can. In fact, whatsoever the Poets themselves may insinuate to the contrary, to read poetry in the presence of Nature is a kind of impiety: it is like reading the commentators on Shakespeare, and skipping the text; for you cannot attend to both; to say nothing of Nature’s book being a vade mecum that can make “every man his own poet” for the time being; and there is, after all, no poetry like that which we create for ourselves. Away, then, with the Poets by profession—at least till the winter comes, and we want them.
Begging pardon of the Eglantine for having permitted any thing—even her own likeness in the Poets’ looking-glass—to turn our attention from her real self,—look with what infinite grace she scatters her sweet coronals here and there among her bending branches; or hangs them, half-concealed, among the heavy blossoms of the Woodbine that lifts itself so boldly above her, after having first clung to her for support; or permits them to peep out here and there close to the ground, and almost hidden by the rank weeds below; or holds out a whole arch-way of them, swaying backward and forward in the breeze, as if praying of the passers hand to pluck them. Let who will praise the Hawthorn—now it is no more! The Wild Rose is the Queen of Forest Flowers, if it be only because she is as unlike a Queen as the absence of every thing courtly can make her.
The Woodbine deserves to be held next in favour during this month; though more on account of its intellectual than its personal beauty. All the air is faint with its rich sweetness; and the delicate breath of its lovely rival is lost in the luscious odours which it exhales.
These are the only scented Wild Flowers that we shall now meet with in any profusion; for though the Violet may still be found by looking for, its breath has lost much of its spring power. But if we are content with mere beauty, this month is perhaps more profuse of it than any other, even in that department of Nature which we are now examining—namely, the Fields and Woods. The rich hedge-row from which we have just been plucking the Eglantine and the Wild Honeysuckle is fringed all along its borders, and festooned in every part, with gay clusters, some of which appeared for the first time last month, and continue through this, and with numerous others which now first come forth. Most conspicuous among the latter are the brilliant Hound’s tongue; the striped and variegated Convolvulus; the Wild Scabious, pale and scentless sister of the rich garden one; the Ox-eye, or Great White Daisy, looking, with its yellow centre surrounded by white beams, like the miniature original of the Sun on country sign-posts; the Mallow, that supplies the little children with cheeses; and two or three of the almost animated Orchises, particularly the Bee-Orchis,—which escapes being rifled of its sweets by that general plunderer who gives his name to it, by always seeming to be pre-occupied.