burdened vine--there be any by man so deeply
loved, by God so highly graced, as that narrow point of feeble green.
And well does it fulfil its mission. Consider what we owe merely to
the meadow grass, to the covering of the dark ground by that glorious
enamel, by the companies of those soft, and countless, and peaceful
spears. The fields! Follow forth but for a little time the thoughts of
all that we ought to recognise in these words. All spring and summer
is in them--the walks by silent, scented paths--the rests in noonday
heat,--the joy of herds and flocks,--the power of all shepherd life
and meditation,--the life of sunlight upon the world falling in
emerald streaks, and falling in soft blue shadows where else it would
have struck upon the dark mould, or scorching dust. Pastures beside
the pacing brooks, soft banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy slopes
of down, overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea, crisp lawns, all
dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine,
dinted by happy feet, and softening in their fall the sound of loving
voices,--all these are summed in those simple words; and these are not
all. We may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift in
our own land, though still as we think of it longer, the infinite of
that meadow sweetness, Shakespeare's peculiar joy, would open on us
more and more; yet we have it but in part. Go out in the springtime
among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the
roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled with the taller
gentians, and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free; and
as you follow the winding mountain path, beneath arching boughs, all
veiled with blossom--paths that for ever droop and rise over the green
banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation steep to the blue
water, studded here and there with new-mown heaps filling all the air
with fainter sweetness,--look up towards the higher hills, where the
waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets among
the shadows of the pines; and we may perhaps at last know the meaning
of those quiet words of the 147th Psalm, "He maketh grass to grow upon
the mountains."

Assembling the images we have traced, and adding the simplest of all,
from Isaiah xl. 6, we find the grass and flowers are types, in their
passing, of the passing of human life, and in their excellence, of the
excellence of human life; and this in twofold w