JUNE 123 



Now the pine blooms in the sandy lands, above the 

 dark-fronded brake and glaucous- fruited whortleberry, the 

 foxgloves break into bell after bell under the oaks and 

 birches. The yellow broom is flowering and scented, and 

 the white lady's bedstraw sweetens the earth's breath. 

 The careless variety of abundance and freshness makes 

 every lane a bride. Suddenly, in the midst of the sand, 

 deep meadows gleam, and the kingfisher paints the air 

 with azure and emerald and rose above the massy water 

 tumbling between aspens at the edge of a neat, shaven 

 lawn, and, behind that, a white mill and miller's house 

 with dark, alluring windows where no one stirs. 



June puts bronze and crimson on many of her leaves. 

 The maple-leaves and many of the leaves of thorn and 

 bramble and dogwood are rosy; the hazel-leaves are rosy- 

 brown; the herb-robert and parsley are rose-red; the 

 leaves of ash and holly are dark lacquered. The copper 

 beeches, opulently sombre under a faintly yellowed sky, 

 seem to be the sacred trees of the thunder that broods 

 above. Presently the colour of the threat is changed to 

 blue, which soiled white clouds pervade until the whole 

 sky is woolly white and grey and moving north. There 

 is no wind, but there is a roar as of a hurricane in the 

 trees far off; soon it is louder, in the trees not so remote; 

 and in a minute the rain has traversed half-a-mile of 

 woods, and the distant combined roar is swallowed up by 

 the nearer pattering on roof and pane and leaf, the dance 

 of leaves, the sway of branches, the trembling of whole 

 trees under the flood. The rain falls straight upon the 

 hard road, and each drop seems to leap upward from it 

 barbed. Great drops dive among the motionless, dusty 

 nettles. The thunder unloads its ponderous burden upon 



