192 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



the echoes of the dark forests with canticles and songs. Now from 

 the bright cloud-land comes the loving Summer, and as soon as her 

 light feet have touched the expectant bosom of the earlh, she flings 

 wide her green doors, and looks with complacent gladness upon the 

 sheeny tapestry, and bowers of floral enchantment, which the gentle 

 Spring has enwoven for her delight. She sees a broad landscape 

 hung with green foliage ; rich meadows, glowing into billowy seas of 

 colour ; and every bush and brake so glittering with golden dust, that 

 it seems as though the heaven had rained down all its stars, and had 

 powdered the very ground with dazzling orbs. Her fairy form is robed 

 in leaves and flowers of every hue, her sunny brow is veiled by silver 

 showers, and her golden hair is enwoven with honeysuckles and hare- 

 bells. Her temple is the wide arching rainbow ; her priestesses are 

 sunbeams ; her ministers and vassals, flowers ; her choristers are the 

 sweet birds which pass their days in live-long melody and bliss ; and 

 her worshippers are all things in heaven and earth, which have beauty 

 for their inheritance. 



When in the full possession of her queendom. Summer commences 

 her work of making perfect that which her sister Spring had so well 

 begun. She glides through the deep woods, beneath shady hedge- 

 rows, and in dell and dingle, where a twilight obscurity reigns at 

 noon, and then she breathes softly on tender buds, and kisses the 

 lowly blossoms. She waters the meadows with soft showers, and 

 wherever she finds a branch or a root, she sprinkles them all over with 

 leaves and blossoms. 



But when is it fairly summer-time ? Is it when the first blossom 

 opens on the water-flag, or the first leaf upon the robinia ? Is it when 

 the blackcap first utters its deep and joyous song, or when the night- 

 ingale has ceased to startle the echoes of the night ? Is it when time 

 has brought us once more to the mid season of June ? Out upon 

 dates, and almanacks, and registers, smelling eternally of quarter-day 

 and taxes! It is summer-time when the fields of corn are coming 

 into bloom, when the bean and the red clover give their combined 

 perfumes to the lightest zephyr that flits from fleld to footpath ; and 

 when the red foxgloves hang out their speckled bells ; while over- 

 head the woodbine throws its trailing banners of floating green, and 

 burnished gold. When the meadow-sweet flings its dreamy odours 

 over the glassy stream, as if striving to bring it under a spell of 

 enchantment. When rich sheets of aroma float over every hill and 



