SUMMER 7 



' Screen'd in this nook over the high half- reaped field, 

 And here till sundown, Shepherd ! will I be, 



Through the thick corn and scarlet poppies peep, 

 And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see 

 Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep ; 



And air-swept lindens yield 



Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers 

 Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid, 

 And bower me from the August sun with shade, 

 And the eye travels down to Oxford Towers.' 



The lines recall some of the very few lines that surpass 

 them in giving the sense of a summer. Wordsworth was 

 not the peer of Arnold as botanist, but the Tintern land- 

 scape is even surer than the Oxford, and more English. 



' The day is come when I again repose 

 Here under the dark sycamore, and view 

 These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard tufts, 

 Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits, 

 Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 

 Among the woods and copses, and disturb 

 The wild green landscape. Once again I see 

 These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines 

 Of sportive wood run wild ; these pastoral farms 

 Green to the very door ; and wreaths of smoke 

 Sent up in silence from among the trees ! ' 



But though we think of summer in England as 'clad in one 

 green hue,' it is worth remembering that those who have 

 travelled round the world, and pried into the forests of 

 tropical regions, have found England conspicuous not only 

 in soft scents, but in brilliance of colour. Both the joys 

 and sorrows of English are highly coloured. What is more 

 gorgeous than the crimson of a field of Australian clover, 

 or the mauve of common clover, or the pink of sainfoin? 

 You will find no such fires of colour as the mustard-field 

 of the Eastern counties or the sham mustard or charlock 

 that adds too much brilliance to too many fields. The 



