200 JULY. 



to harvest, dark lines of intersecting hedge-rows, 

 and darker trees, lifting their heavy heads above 

 them. The foliage at this period is rich, full, and 

 vigorous ; there is a fine haze cast over distant woods 

 and bosky slopes, and every lofty and majestic tree 

 is filled with a soft shadowy twilight, which adds 

 infinitely to their beauty a circumstance that has 

 never been sufficiently noticed by either poet or 

 painter. Willows are now beautiful objects in the 

 landscape : they are like rich masses of arborescent 

 silver, especially if stirred by the breeze, their light 

 and fluent forms contrasting finely with the still and 

 sombre aspect of the other trees. 



Now is the general season of haymaking. Bands 

 of mowers, in their light dresses and broad straw hats, 

 are astir long before the fiery eye of the sun glances 

 above the horizon, that they may toil in the freshness 

 of the morning, and stretch themselves at noon in luxu- 

 rious ease by trickling waters, and beneath the shade 

 of trees. Till then, with regular strokes, and as weep- 

 ing sound, the sweet and flowery grass falls before 

 them, revealing, at almost every step, nests of young 

 birds, mice in their cozy domes, and the mossy cells 

 of the humble-bee streaming with liquid honey ; anon, 

 troops of haymakers are abroad, tossing the green 

 swaths to the sun. It is one of Nature's festivities, 

 endeared by a thousand pleasant memories and habits 

 of the olden days, and not a soul can resist it. 



There is a sound of tinkling teams and wagons 

 rolling along lanes and fields the whole country 

 over, ay, even at midnight, till at length, the 



