Part 8 (1/2)

'Tis true that still

”The Rainbow comes and goes,

The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The suns.h.i.+ne is a glorious birth;-- But yet we know, where'er we go, That there hath pa.s.sed away a glory from the Earth.”

Let me be permitted to make use of a few more words from the same poem; for by no others can I hope so well to kindle in the reader, that feeling with which I would fain have him possessed, on the advent of this still delightful season of the year, if it be but received and enjoyed in the spirit in which it comes to us.

”What,” then----

”What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from our sight-- Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the gra.s.s, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not--rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which, having been, must ever be;

In the faith that looks through death; In thoughts that bring the philosophic mind.”

I cannot choose but continue this strain a little longer; and I suppose my readers will be the last persons to complain of my doing so; it is the poet alone who will have cause to object to his meanings throughout, and in one or two instances his words, being diverted from their original purpose, but I hope not degraded in their application, nor disenchanted of their power.

”And oh! ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Think not of any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might.

The innocent brightness of a new-born day Is lovely yet; The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That watches o'er the Year's mortality.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live; Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears; To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

Reader, this is said by the greatest poet of our age, and one of the deepest, wisest, and most virtuous of her philosophic sages. And it is said by him even in the sense in which it is here applied, _now that it has been once so applied_: for much of his words have this in common with those of Shakspeare, that you may turn them to an almost equally apt and good account in many different ways, besides those in which they were at first directed. Let them be received, then, in the spirit in which they are here uttered, and we shall be able and ent.i.tled to continue our task, of following the year through its vicissitudes, and still (as we began it) ”pursue our course to the end, rejoicing.”

The youth of the year is gone, then. Even the vigour and l.u.s.tihood of its maturity are quick pa.s.sing away. It has reached the summit of the hill, and is not only looking, but descending, into the valley below.

But, unlike that into which the life of man declines, _this_ is not a vale of tears; still less does it, like that, lead to that inevitable bourne, the Kingdom of the Grave. For though it may be called (I hope without the semblance of profanation) ”The Valley of the _Shadow_ of Death,” yet of Death itself it knows nothing. No--the year steps onward towards its temporary decay, if not so rejoicingly, even more majestically and gracefully, than it does towards its revivification.

And if September is not so bright with promise and so buoyant with hope as May, it is even more embued with that spirit of serene repose, in which the only true, because the only continuous enjoyment consists.

Spring ”never _is_, but always _to be_ blest;” but September is the month of consummations--the fulfiller of all promises--the fruition of all hopes--the era of all completeness. Let us then turn at once to gaze on, and partake in, its manifold beauties and blessings, not let them pa.s.s us by, with the empty salutation of mere praise; for the only panegyric that is acceptable to Nature is that just appreciation of her gifts which consists in the full enjoyment of them.

Supposing ourselves, as usual, in the middle of the month, we shall find the seed Harvests quite completed, and even the ground on which they stood appearing under an entirely new aspect,--the Plough having opened, or being now in the act of opening, its fragrant breast, and exposing it for a while to the genial influence of the sun and air, before it is again called upon to perform its never-failing functions.

There are other Harvests, however, which are still to be gathered in; in particular, that most elegant and picturesque of all with which this country is acquainted, and which may also be considered as _peculiar_ to this country, upon any thing like a great scale: I mean the Hop Harvest.

In the few counties in which this plant is cultivated, we are now presented with the nearest semblance we can boast, of the Vintages of Italy and Spain.

The Apple Harvest, too, of the Cider counties takes place this month; and though I must not represent it as very fertile in the elegant and picturesque, let me not neglect to do justice to its produce, as the only one deserving the name of British Wine; all other so-called liquors being, the reader may rest a.s.sured, worse than poisons, in the exact proportion that specious hypocrites are worse than open, bold-faced villains.

I hope the good housewives of my country (the only country in the world which produces the breed) need not be told, that, in thus placarding the impostor above-named, I have not the slightest thought of hurting the high reputation of her immaculate ”home-made,” which she so generously brings out from the bottom division of her s.h.i.+ning beaufet, and presses (somewhat importunately) on every morning comer. She shall never have to ask me twice to taste even a second gla.s.s of it, always provided she calls it by its true and trustworthy name of ”home-made”--to which, in _my_ vocabulary, Montepulciano itself must yield the pas. But if, bitten perhaps by some London Bagman, she happen to have contracted an affection for fine phrases, and chooses to call her cordial by the style and t.i.tle of ”_British wine_”--away with it, for me! I would not touch it,

”Though 'twere a draught for Juno when she banquets.”

In fact, she might as well call it _Cape_ at once!

The truth is, I once, to oblige an elderly lady at Hackney, _did_ taste two gla.s.ses of ”British wine” at a sitting; and my stomach has had a load (of sugar of lead) upon its conscience ever since.