The Rural Life of England

by William Howitt

And then, when May comes in, and we walk abroad some fine, sunshiny, breezy, yet balmy day,—balmy in hollows and dells, and along southern uplands; fresh blowing on the ridges of the downs—breezy in the forest glades; and hear the ringing notes of the blackbird and thrush, and the lark calling to high heaven itself in uncontrolable joy; and see peasants out in fields and gardens, women, from the lady of the hall to the dame of the cottage, drawn out to be genial lookers-on, and directors in the renewal of flower-borders, in the sowing of seeds and planting of shrubs; and see old men sitting on stone or wooden benches on the warm side of the house, or leading some little child by the hand down the lane,—two links come strangely together, from the extremities of the chain of human life; one not having yet arrived at the troubles of humanity, the other past them; yet what a wide, dark care-land lying between them!—to see groups of children scattered here and there over the happy fields, tracing the hedge-sides, or the clear streams, or running to secure the first cowslips, while their clear voices come ringing from the distant steeps and hill-tops, why—there is happiness to the nature-loving and man-loving spirit, that is as far beyond the power of human expression, as God’s goodness is beyond mortal comprehension.

There is a season of early spring marked by a succession of flowers that has something in it to me more tenderly poetical than any other part of the year. It is that between the appearance of the snowdrop and the cowslip, with all the intermediate links of the crocus, the violet, the primrose, the anemone, and the bluebell. They have, in themselves, such delicate grace, and are surrounded in our minds by so many poetical associations, and they mark the fleet passing of a period of so much anticipation, that they are seen with a delight at their re-appearance, and a regret that they must so soon be gone by. Then, too, they have the world almost all to themselves. They are the few beloved children of the early time. All their more gorgeous and joyous kindred are still slumbering in the earth. They come forth and salute us amid the naked landscape, amid wild, chill winds and beating rain. When the cowslip disappears it is no longer so; all is greenness and sunshine; a thousand blossoms hang on the forest bough, or flutter on the earth; and the delicacy of our perceptions is lost in the profusion of beauty.

But then, in that calmer season, when May has put on all its wealth and splendour; when the fields are deep with grass, and golden and purple with flowers; when the hawthorn is a miracle of beauty and sweetness, perfuming the whole air, what paradises of delight are gardens—warm, flowery, odorous—happy with the hum of bees: and old orchards, where you may witness what Coleridge so feelingly describes in a noble blank-verse letter to his brother:—

As now, on some delicious eve,
We in our sweet sequestered orchard plot
Sit on the tree crooked earthward; whose old boughs,
That hang above us in an arborous roof,
Stirred by the faint gale of departing May,
Send their loose blossoms slanting o’er our heads!

And thus it is through every season. In June and July, the glow and perpetual beauty of the country; the abundance of grass and flowers; the charm of river sides, of angling in woodland streams; the magnificence of thunder-storms; the breaking out of coolness and freshness after them; the delights of running waters; bathing and sailing; the fragrance of fields and gardens; the beauty of summer moonlight; the picturesque cheerfulness of hay-harvest; the enjoyment of rich mountain scenery; rambling amongst the brightness of morning dews, along valleys, past the outstretched feet of heathy hills; lying on some moorland slope conscious of all the singular hush and glow of noon; watching all the varying lights and hues, listening to the varied sounds of evening in glens, now basking in the yellow calm sunshine, now deep in gloom; amid towering crags, by the dash of waters, or on some airy ridge that catches the last glow of heaven, taking in a vast stretch of scenes that defy alike the power of pen and pencil.

Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue ocean! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wild landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; a living thing
Which acts upon the mind, and with such hues
As clothe the Almighty Spirit when he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

Coleridge.

And then the corn-harvest, with all its happy human groups, and rich colours; the calm, steady splendour of autumn days; the deepening silence of the decaying year, its returning storms and pictorial tints; the very gloom and awfulness with which the year retreats, sending the spirit inwards. In all these scenes and changes, the soul of the lover of Nature luxuriates; and even finds beauty and strength in the stern visitations of winter. He goes with Nature in all her rounds, and rejoices with her in all. There needs for him no great event, no combination of stirring circumstances; it is not even necessary to him that he be poet, or painter, or sportsman; if he have not the skill or faculty of any, he has the spirit of all. For him there are spread out in earth and heaven, pictures such as never graced the galleries of art. He sees splendours, and scenes painted by the hand of the Almighty, for whose faintest imitations the connoisseur would pay the price of an estate. To him every landscape presents beauty; to him every gale breathes pleasure; and every change of scene or season is a new unfolding of enjoyment. He knows nothing of the heart-burnings and jealousies which infest crowded places. He is not saddened by the sight of wickedness, or the experience of ingratitude and deceit. He is exempt from the ennui of polished society; the sneers of its unkindly criticism; and the hollowness of its professions. He converses with the Great Spirit which lives through the universe, and fills the hearts that open to its influence with purity, humanity, the sweetest sympathies, the most holy desires; and overshadows them with that profound peace and that inward satisfaction, which are themselves the most substantial happiness.

That these are no vain imaginations, but positive realities, scattered abroad for universal acceptance as much as the blessings of air and sunshine, we have only to open the works of our best writers to be convinced of;—to see how the expression of their happiness breaks from them continually. It is this overflowing and irrepressible gladness of a heart resting on nature which gives such a charm to the writings of White and Evelyn, and good old Izaak Walton. And the poets—they are full of it. Listen to them, and then consider the nobility of their views, and the lofty purity of their souls, and then admit the power and depth of that influence which lives in Nature and speaks in Christianity.

So shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language which thy God
Utters; who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,—
Whether the summer clothe the genial earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the turfs of snow in the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall,
Heard only in the traces of the blast;
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet moon.