now. That slight motion in the hedge, however, conveys an impression of
something living everywhere within.

There are birds in the oaks overhead whose voice is audible though they
are themselves unseen. From out of the mowing grass, finches rise and
fly to the hedge; from the hedge again others fly out, and, descending
into the grass, are concealed as in a forest. A thrush travelling along
the hedgerow just outside goes by the gateway within a yard. Bees come
upon the light wind, gliding with it, but with their bodies aslant
across the line of current. Butterflies flutter over the mowing grass,
hardly clearing the bennets. Many-coloured insects creep up the sorrel
stems and take wing from the summit.

Everything gives forth a sound of life. The twittering of swallows from
above, the song of greenfinches in the trees, the rustle of hawthorn
sprays moving under the weight of tiny creatures, the buzz upon the
breeze; the very flutter of the butterflies' wings, noiseless as it is,
and the wavy movement of the heated air across the field cause a sense
of motion and of music.

The leaves are enlarging, and the sap rising, and the hard trunks of the
trees swelling with its flow; the grass blades pushing upwards; the
seeds completing their shape; the tinted petals uncurling. Dreamily
listening, leaning on the gate, all these are audible to the inner
senses, while the ear follows the midsummer hum, now sinking, now
sonorously increasing over the oaks. An effulgence fills the southern
boughs, which the eye cannot sustain, but which it knows is there.

The sun at its meridian pours forth his light, forgetting, in all the
inspiration of his strength and glory, that without an altar-screen of
green his love must scorch. Joy in life; joy in life. The ears listen,
and want more: the eyes are gratified with gazing, and desire yet
further; the nostrils are filled with the sweet odours of flower and
sap. The touch, too, has its pleasures, dallying with leaf and flower.
Can you not almost grasp the odour-laden air and hold it in the hollow
of the hand?

Leaving the spot at last, and turning again into the lane, the shadows
dance upon the white dust under the feet, irregularly circular spots of
light surrounded with umbra shift with the shifting branches. By the
wayside lie rings of dandelion stalks carelessly cast down by the child
who made them, and tufts of delicate grasses gathered for their beauty
but now sprinkled with dust.