Mirror of the Months

by P. G. Patmore

What can be more beautiful to look on, from an eminence, than a great Plain, painted all over with the party-coloured honours of the early portion of this month, when the all-pervading verdure of the Spring has passed away, and before the scorching heats of Summer have had time to prevail over the various tints and hues that have taken its place? The principal share of the landscape will probably be occupied by the sober hues of the above-named Corns. But these will be intersected, in all directions, by patches of the brilliant emerald which now begins to spring afresh on the late-mown meadows; by the golden yellow of the Rye, in some cases cut, and standing in sheaves; by the rich dark green of the Turnip-fields; and still more brilliantly, by sweeps, here and there, of the bright yellow Charlock, the scarlet Corn-poppy, and the blue Succory, which, like perverse beauties, scatter the stray gifts of their charms in proportion as the soil cannot afford to support the expenses attendant on them.

Still keeping in the open Fields, let us come into a little closer contact with some of the sights which they present this month. The high Down on which we took our stand, to look out upon the above prospect, has begun to feel the parching influence of the Sun, and is daily growing browner and browner beneath its rays; but, to make up for this, all the little Molehills that cover it are purple with the flowers of the wild Thyme, which exhales its rich aromatic odour as you press it with your feet; and among it the elegant blue Heath-bell is nodding its half-dependent head from its almost invisible stem,—its perpetual motion, at the slightest breath of air, giving it the look of a living thing hovering on invisible wings just above the ground. Every here and there, too, we meet with little patches of dark green Heaths, hung all over with their clusters of exquisitely wrought filigree flowers, endless in the variety of their forms, but all of the most curiously delicate fabric, and all, in their minute beauty, unparalleled by the proudest occupiers of the Parterre. This is the singular family of Plants that, when cultivated in pots, and trained to form heads on separate stems, give one the idea of the Forest Trees of a Lilliputian people. Those who think there is nothing in Nature too insignificant for notice, will not ask us to quit our present spot of observation (a high turf-covered Down) without pointing out the innumerable little thread-like spikes that now rise from out the level turf, with scarcely perceptible seed-heads at top, and keep the otherwise dead flat perpetually alive, by bending and twinkling beneath the Sun and breeze.

Descending from our high observatory, let us take our way through one of the pretty green Lanes that skirt or intersect the Plain we have been looking down upon. Here we shall find the ground beneath our feet, the Hedges that inclose us on either side, and the dry Banks and damp Ditches beneath them, clothed in a beautiful variety of flowers that we have not yet had an opportunity of noticing. In the Hedge-rows (which are now grown into impervious walls of many-coloured and many-shaped leaves, from the fine filigree-work of the White-thorn, to the large, coarse, round leaves of the Hazel) we shall find the most remarkable of these, winding up intricately among the crowded branches, and shooting out their flowers here and there, among other leaves than their own, or hanging themselves into festoons and fringes on the outside, by unseen tendrils. Most conspicuous among the first of these is the great Bind-weed, thrusting out its elegantly-formed snow-white flowers, but carefully concealing its leaves and stem in the thick of the shrubs which yield it support. Nearer to the ground, and more exposed, we shall meet with a handsome relative of the above, the common red and white wild Convolvolus; while all along the face of the Hedge, clinging to it lightly, the various coloured Vetches, and the Enchanter’s Night-shade, hang their flowers into the open air; the first exquisitely fashioned, with wings like the Pea, only smaller; and the other elaborate in its construction, and even beautiful, with its rich purple petals turned back to expose a centre of deep yellow; but still, with all its beauty, not without a strange and sinister look, which at once points it out as a poison-flower. It is this which afterwards turns to those bunches of scarlet berries which hang so temptingly in Autumn, just within the reach of little children, and which it requires all the eloquence of their grandmothers to prevent them from tasting. In the midst of these, and above them all, the Woodbine now hangs out its flowers more profusely than ever, and rivals in sweetness all the other field scents of this month.

On the bank from which the Hedge-row rises, and on this side of the now nearly dry water-channel beneath, fringing the border of the green path on which we are walking, a most rich variety of Field Flowers will also now be found. We dare not stay to notice the half of them, because their beauties, though even more exquisite than those hitherto described, are of that unobtrusive nature that you must stoop to pick them up, and must come to an actual commune with them, before they can be even seen distinctly; which is more than our desultory and fugitive gaze will permit,—the plan of our walk only allowing us to pay the passing homage of a word to those objects that will not be overlooked. Many of the exquisite little Flowers, now alluded to generally, look, as they lie among their low leaves, only like minute morsels of many-coloured glass scattered upon the green ground—scarlet, and sapphire, and rose, and purple, and white, and azure, and golden. But pick them up, and bring them towards the eye, and you will find them pencilled with a thousand dainty devices, and elaborated into the most exquisite forms and fancies, fit to be strung into necklaces for fairy Titania, or set in broaches and bracelets for the neatest-handed of her nymphs.

The little flowers of which I now speak,—with their minute blossoms, scarcely bigger than pins’ heads, scattered singly among their low-lying leaves,—are the Veronicas, particularly that called the Wild Germander, with its flowers coloured like no others, nor like any thing else, except the Turquoise; the Scarlet Pimpernel; the Red Eyebright; and the Bastard Pimpernel, the smallest of flowers. All these, however, and their like, I must pass over (as the rest of the world does) without noticing them particularly; but not without commending them to the reader’s best leisure, and begging him to give to each one of them more of it than I have any hope he will bestow on me, or than he would bestow half so well if he did.

But there are many others that come into bloom this month, some of which we cannot pass unnoticed if we would. We shall meet with most of them in this green Lane, and beside the paths through the meadows and corn-fields as we proceed homeward. Conspicuous among them are the Centaury, with its elegant cluster of small, pink, star-like flowers; the Ladies’ Bed-straw, with its rich yellow tufts; the Meadow-sweet—sweetest of all the sweeteners of the Meadows; the Wood Betony, lifting up its handsome head of rose-coloured blossoms; and, still in full perfection, and towering up from among the low groundlings that usually surround it, the stately Fox-glove.

Among the other plants that now become conspicuous, the Wild Teasal must not be forgotten, if it be only on account of the use that one of the Summer’s prettiest denizens sometimes makes of it. The Wild Teasal (which now puts on as much the appearance of a flower as its rugged nature will let it) is that species of thistle which shoots up a strong serrated stem, straight as an arrow, and beset on all sides by hard sharp-pointed thorns, and bearing on its summit a hollow egg-shaped head, also covered at all points with the same armour of threatening thorns—as hard, as thickly set, and as sharp as a porcupine’s quills. Often within this fortress, impregnable to birds, bees, and even to mischievous boys themselves, that beautiful Moth which flutters about so gaily during the first weeks of Summer, on snow-white wings spotted all over with black and yellow, takes up its final abode,—retiring thither when weary of its desultory wanderings, and after having prepared for the perpetuation of its ephemeral race, sleeping itself to death, to the rocking lullaby of the breeze.

Now, too, if we pass near some gently lapsing water, we may chance to meet with the splendid flowers of the Great Water Lily, floating on the surface of the stream like some fairy vessel at anchor, and making visible, as it ripples by it, the elsewhere imperceptible current. Nothing can be more elegant than each of the three different states under which this flower now appears;—the first, while it lies unopened among its undulating leaves, like the Halcyon’s egg within its floating nest; next, when its snowy petals are but half expanded, and you are almost tempted to wonder what beautiful bird it is that has just taken its flight from such a sweet birth-place; and lastly, when the whole flower floats confessed, and spreading wide upon the water its pointed petals, offers its whole heart to the enamoured sun. There is I know not what of awful, in the beauty of this flower. It is, to all other flowers, what Mrs. Siddons is to all other women.

In the same water, congregating together towards the edge, and bowing their black heads to the breeze, we shall now see those strange anomalies in vegetation, the flowers, or fruit, or whatever else they are to be called, of the Bullrush, the delight of village boys, when, like their betters, they are disposed to “play at soldiers.” And on the bank, the handsome Iris hangs out its pale flag, as if to beg a truce of the besieging sun.

Before entering the Garden, to luxuriate among the flocks of Flowers that are waiting for us there, let us notice a few of the miscellaneous objects that present themselves this month in the open country. Now, then, cattle wade into shallow pools of warm water, and stand half the day there stock still, in exact imitation of Cuyp’s pictures.—Now, breechesless little boys become amphibious,—daring each other to dive off banks a foot high, to the bottom of water two feet deep.—Now, country gentlemen who wander through new-cut Rye-fields, or across sunny meadows, are first startled from their reveries by the rushing sound of many wings, and straightway lay gunpowder plots against the peace of partridges, and have visions redolent of double-barrelled guns.—Now, another class of children, of a smaller growth than the above, go through one of their preparatory lessons in the pleasant and profitable art of lying, by persuading Lady-birds to “fly away home” from the tops of their extended fingers, on the forged information that “their house is on fire, their children at home.”