WHEATFIELDS 



Standing in the gateway beneath the shelter of 

 the elms as the clouds come over, it is pleasant to 

 hear the cool refreshing rain come softly down ; 

 the green wheat drinks it as it falls, so that hardly 

 a drop reaches the ground, and to-morrow it will 

 be as dry as ever. Wood-pigeons call from 

 the hedges, and blackbirds whistle in the trees ; 

 the sweet delicious rain refreshes them as it does 

 the corn. 



Thunder mutters in the distance, and the electric 

 atmosphere rapidly draws the wheat up higher. 

 A few days' sunshine and the first wheatear appears. 

 Very likely there are others near, but standing 

 with their hood of green leaf towards you, and 

 therefore hidden. As the wheat comes into ear, it 

 is garlanded about with hedges in full flower. 



It is midsummer, and midsummer, like a bride, 

 is decked in white. On the high-reaching briars 

 white June roses ; white flowers on the lowly 

 brambles ; broad white umbels of elder in the 

 corner, and white cornels blooming under the elm ; 

 honeysuckle hanging creamy white coronals round 

 the ash boughs ; white meadow-sweet flowering on 

 the shore of the ditch ; white clover, too, beside 

 the gateway. As spring is azure and purple, so 

 midsummer is white, and autumn golden. Thus 

 the coming out of the wheat into ear is marked and 

 welcomed with the purest colour. 



