It seems but yesterday that the punctual year brought back her Daffodils—that Hyacinth and Tulip pushed up green shoots for the spring sunshine—and now the Syringa bushes are white with bloom.
In one short week midsummer will have come, that beautiful holiday of the summer solstice, whose festal observance is, in England, of great antiquity.
The old practice of lighting bonfires in London and in other towns (and even in villages) is probably a remnant of the pagan rites once observed on that day.
Later, the Christian monks dedicated this festival to one of their saints, and, accordingly, the people on that day made their houses gay with St. John's-wort and other flowers and at evening kept the "vigil of St. John the Baptist," lighting bonfires in honor of this saint. Every man's door was then hung with birch boughs and lamps of glass, whose oil burnt on through the night. An old parish entry—dating so far back as the reign of Edward IVth—thus stands: "For birch at Midsummer VIII d"; and again, "Various payments for birch bowes at Midsummer."
Old English poets commemorate in verse the hanging at this season of birch branches over the sign boards of shop doors.
Perhaps in our increasing demand for holidays we may yet adopt this charming festival of our English forbears, as we have that of their Yule-tide. It would fall at the same season as did that pretty Persian festival, "The Feast of Roses."
Today, in after-dinner "idlesse," with the unread morning paper in my hand, I sit beneath the blossomed Tulip trees, taking in so much of the beauty and perfection of the hour as my limited being will hold. Shadow and sunshine interchange upon the lush green lawn, where today the Syringa sprinkles its first light snow. The breath of blown Peonies scents the summer air along with the languorous odor of the mock-orange flowers. Yonder, in the old pear tree hard by the Lover's bowery walk, a happy thrush sings out his little heart while his silent mate broods patiently the family nest. A distant robin pipes cheerily among the apple boughs, and somewhere among the treetops a gurgling oriole sings—sings as if in this whole wide world of ours there were neither pain nor death, but only life, and joy, and never-ending summer.
Last night a Damask Rose opened in the garden—
"God's in his Heaven; all's right with the world!"
For myself—attuned to the blessed influences of the hour—I am at peace with all mankind. My enemies, one and all, are forgiven on the spot, and I meekly consider the advisability of "turning the other cheek" for a second "smite." For what saith the old herbalist—combining in his ancient book floriculture and ethical instruction? "Flowers, through their beautie, variety of color, and exquisite forme, doe bring to a liberal and gentlemanly minde the remembrance of honestie, comeliness, and all kinds of virtues. For it woulde be an unseemly thing for him that dothe looke upon and handle faire and beautiful things to have his minde not faire, but filthy and depraved."