great world of work has
somehow seemed to drop its burdens into space, and carries nothing but
rest and quietude along its journey under the summer sky, I have seen a
pageant in the open fields that has made me doubt whether a dream had
not taken me unawares. I have seen the first sweet flowers of spring
rise softly out of the grass where they had been hiding and call gently
to each other, as if afraid that a single loud word would dissolve the
charm of sun and warm breeze for which they had waited so long. After
their dreamless sleep of months, these beautiful children of Mother
Earth seemed almost afraid to break the stillness from which they had
come, and strayed about noiselessly, with subdued and lovely mien,
exhaling a perfume as delicate as themselves. Then, with a rush and
shout, the summer flowers suddenly burst upon the scene, overflowing
with life and merriment; in lawless troops they ran hither and thither,
flinging echoes of their laughter over the whole country-side, and soon
overshadowing entirely their older and more sensitive fellows; these,
indeed, soon vanish altogether, as if lonely and out of place under the
broad glare and high colours of mid-summer. And now for weeks together
the game went on without pause or break; the revelry grew fast and
furious, until one suspected that some night the Bacchic throng had
passed that way and left their mood of wild and lawless frolic behind.

At last a softer aspect spread itself over the glowing sky and earth.
The nights grew vocal with the invisible chorus of insect life; there
was a mellow splendour in the moonlight, which touched the distant
hills and wide-spreading waters with a pathetic prophecy of change.
And now, ripe, serene, and rich with the accumulated beauty of the
summer, the autumn flowers appeared. Their movement was like the
stately dances of olden times; youth and its overflow were gone
forever; but in the hour of maturity there remained a noble beauty,
which touched all imaginations and communicated to all visible things a
splendour of which the most radiant hours of early summer had been only
faintly prophetic. In the calm of these golden days the autumn flowers
reigned with a more than regal state, and when the first cold breath of
winter touched them, they fell from their great estate silently and
royally as if their fate were matched to their rank. And now the
fields were bare once more.

From such a dream as this I often awake j