60 T1IE LIFE OF T1IE FIELDS. 



the colours were fairer, the blue more lovely in the 

 lucid sky. Each leaf finer, and the gross earth ena- 

 melled beneath the feet. A sweet breath on the air, 

 a soft warm hand in the touch of the sunshine, a 

 glance in the gleam of the rippled waters, a whisper 

 in the dance of the shadows. The ethereal haze 

 lifted the heavy oaks and they were buoyant on the 

 mead, the rugged bark was chastened and no longer 

 rough, each slender flower beneath them again refined. 

 There was a presence everywhere though unseen, 

 on the open hills, and not shut out under the dark 

 pines. Dear were the June roses then because for 

 another gathered. Yet even dearer now with so many 

 years as it were upon the petals; all the days that 

 have been before, all the heart-throbs, all our hopes lie 

 in this opened bud. Let not the eyes grow dim, look 

 not back but forward ; the soul must uphold itself like 

 the sun. Let us labour to make the heart grow larger 

 as we become older, as the spreading oak gives more 

 shelter. That we could but take to the soul some of 

 the greatness and the beauty of the summer 1 



Still the pageant moves. The song-talk of the 

 finches rises and sinks like the tinkle of a waterfall. 

 The greenfinches have been by me all the while. A 

 bullfinch pipes now and then further up the hedge 

 where the brambles and thorns are thickest. Boldest 

 of birds to look at, he is always in hiding. The shrill 

 tone of a goldfinch came just now from the ash 

 branches, but he has gone on. Every four or five 

 minutes a chaffinch sings close by, and another fills the 

 interval near the gateway. There are linnets some- 

 where, but I cannot from the old apple tree fix their 



