Scenes of the Olden Times

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Utibsnmnwr. A sound of song Beneath the vault of heaven Is blown! Shelley. Meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled In celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. Wordsworth. JO this most pleasant and genial month, the month of leafy lanes and blossomy hedgerows, and fragrant piles of fresh-mown hay; to the Jolly June, arrayed All In green leaves, our Saxon forefathers?brave men and true, with a spark of wild romance in their rugged natures?gave the apt name of Weyd-monath, because their beasts did then weyd in the meddowes?that is to say, goe to feed there; and hereof a medow is also in the Teutonicke called a weyd; and of weyd we yet retain our word ' wade, ' which we understand of going through watrie places, such as meddowes are wont to be. Also did these strong Saxons pleasantlyspeak of it as the Medemonath, or mid-month of the year, and the Mid-somer monath; and by either, or all of these names, to all lovers of rural sights and sounds, must lusty June be welcome. For it is warmer, blander, more dulcet (so to speak), than May; as if the music of the year had deepened into a fuller and nobler harmony; yet does it escape the fierce heats and raging storms of July. Summer, as yet, does not leap upon the earth like a tiger ?to use poor Alexander Smith's bold simile?but rather folds her in the bridegroom's fond embrace. It dowers her with a wealth of bud and leaf and blossom, till she glitters like a fair bride in all her jewels. It crowns the woodland with leafy honours; it pours a happy music through the groves. And it sends the haymakers out into the leas, to garner up their abundant and wholesome spoil. How beautiful are the grasses in this midsummer month of June ! It see...