To the real lover of the country there needs no great events, no exciting circumstances to effect his happiness. The freshness of the country, and the profoundness of its quiet, are to him full of happiness. The whole round of the seasons, the passage of every day, the still walk amongst fields and woods, and by running waters, are to him sources of perpetual pleasures. When “the winter is over and gone,” he sees with joy the increased light amongst the breaking clouds and dispersing1 fogs; he feels with delight the milder temperature; he passes by, and observes the first bursting from the warm southern banks of green, luxuriant plants,—the arum, the mercury, the crisp chervil, the wrinkled leaves of the primrose2, the blossomed branch of the apricot and peach on the sunny walls of the cottage, and the almond in the garden and shrubbery, like a tree of rosy3 sunshine, ere a leaf is yet seen; these things he sees with a feeling that has more true delight in it than ever was known to city drawing-room or palace. To me, the most ordinary walk in the country is, and always has been a luxury. I remember what joy these things gave me when a boy, and now they give me again a boy’s heart. I remember the enjoyment4 I experienced, when an old sportsman used to take his gun on his arm on a Saturday afternoon, when my village school made holiday, and led me up long lanes, between high mossy banks, where the little runnels come rushing and chiming along, between high, overhanging[575] hedges; and through wide, still, shady woods; and across fields deep with greenest grass, and bright with sunshine, and all the glory of spring; and everywhere pointed5 out to me the nests of birds, each built in its peculiar6 situation; the robin7 and the yellow-hammer on the bank; blackbirds and throstles in the hedges, or under the roots of some old tree overhanging a stream, or set amongst the boughs8 of the young fir-trees in the plantations10. I remember how I used to delight in the depth of rich grass and flowery weeds in the open fields and along the sunshiny hedges; in the hedges themselves, all clad in their young leaves, sprinkled with glittering morning dews, and perhaps waving with the utmost prodigality11 of hawthorn12 bloom. I remember too, with what earnest delight I used to gaze on the bushes of the wild-rose briar, and admire the singular beauty of its finely-cut and emerald-green leaves, amongst which the whitethroat framed its gauzy nest. All this I remember: and while I think of it, I seem to hear the lark13 singing in the clear air above me, as he used to do, with a
Joy we never can come near:
and I now see more clearly what it was that produced such an effect upon me. It was that beauty, that wide-spreading, cheering, heart-strengthening beauty—which God hath showered on the face of the earth, to make us feel his presence in his works; and to learn to love him as we go along the most solitary14 paths, and to rejoice in his goodness, where the world comes not between us and the perception of it. It was that beauty, which is indeed a revelation from heaven, that then made itself felt in my young heart, and has only grown more dear to me every year and every day, and I trust has not been wanting of all that good effect which it is intended it should produce, by weaning us from worldly pleasures, by bringing us to feel habitually15 the presence of love, and providence16, and divine purity, as we go along in solitude17 and thought; in short, in keeping alive in our hearts the freshness of their feelings and the strength of their better hopes. All this I remember, and it is like the light of a perpetual summer morning in the far-off horizon of memory; and I say, all these delicious feelings have gone with me through life, and do, and will, go with all those who love nature with a filial love.
[576]
The first glimpses of spring have in our eyes and hearts an indescribable charm. There is a freshness and a mellowness18 in the earth then, after the frosts and rains of winter, that give a beauty to it that it possesses at no other period of the year. I never see it, and smell the odour of the upturned soil, without seeming to feel renewed our ancient kinship with the earth whence we sprung, which gives us such manifold blessings19 all our natural lives, and takes us to its peaceful bosom20 when we lie down wearied, wasted, and heart-worn. When the labourer cuts his ditches, and piles up his banks anew, there is a beauty in the dark, clear, smooth earth, which his spade cleaves21 so shiningly. As the children of the village hunt over the steep banks for violets or snail-shells, or the early robin’s nest, your eye is made conscious of the beauty of those banks, with their crumbling22 mould and springing plants. As the drainer cuts his drain in the greensward of the meadows; as the ploughman turns up the broad lea, all is rich and beautiful. And then, as the hedges and trees clothe themselves in their new and delicate foliage23; as the winds come singing sonorously24; as the grass and flowers spring beneath your feet; as April now smiles out joyously25 and bright, and now broods still and beneficent, with a gloom in its sky so unlike the gloom of autumn or winter—a gloom casting a dark shade on the distant landscape, while, in other quarters, the light comes bursting and gushing27 through the thinner places of the clouds; and fields lie hushed amid light mists, and scattered29 with a silvery dew in such a living, prolific30 greenness, that you feel that the birth of millions of flowers is rapidly maturing; that violets must be springing in legions along the hedges and in the copses; and that the old, yellow English daffodil is nodding in tufts in village crofts, and over the margins31 of mossy wells.
At such times, so deeply do we feel the entrancing influence of spring, that we cannot help breaking out into an affectionate apostrophe in praise of her:
All sadness from my heart is gone—
All sadness, and all fears,
Till I forget that thou art one
Who metest out our years.
And then, when May comes in, and we walk abroad some fine, sunshiny, breezy, yet balmy day,—balmy in hollows and dells, and[577] along southern uplands; fresh blowing on the ridges33 of the downs—breezy in the forest glades34; and hear the ringing notes of the blackbird and thrush, and the lark calling to high heaven itself in uncontrolable joy; and see peasants out in fields and gardens, women, from the lady of the hall to the dame35 of the cottage, drawn36 out to be genial37 lookers-on, and directors in the renewal38 of flower-borders, in the sowing of seeds and planting of shrubs39; and see old men sitting on stone or wooden benches on the warm side of the house, or leading some little child by the hand down the lane,—two links come strangely together, from the extremities40 of the chain of human life; one not having yet arrived at the troubles of humanity, the other past them; yet what a wide, dark care-land lying between them!—to see groups of children scattered here and there over the happy fields, tracing the hedge-sides, or the clear streams, or running to secure the first cowslips, while their clear voices come ringing from the distant steeps and hill-tops, why—there is happiness to the nature-loving and man-loving spirit, that is as far beyond the power of human expression, as God’s goodness is beyond mortal comprehension.
There is a season of early spring marked by a succession of flowers that has something in it to me more tenderly poetical41 than any other part of the year. It is that between the appearance of the snowdrop and the cowslip, with all the intermediate links of the crocus, the violet, the primrose, the anemone42, and the bluebell43. They have, in themselves, such delicate grace, and are surrounded in our minds by so many poetical associations, and they mark the fleet passing of a period of so much anticipation44, that they are seen with a delight at their re-appearance, and a regret that they must so soon be gone by. Then, too, they have the world almost all to themselves. They are the few beloved children of the early time. All their more gorgeous and joyous26 kindred are still slumbering45 in the earth. They come forth46 and salute47 us amid the naked landscape, amid wild, chill winds and beating rain. When the cowslip disappears it is no longer so; all is greenness and sunshine; a thousand blossoms hang on the forest bough9, or flutter on the earth; and the delicacy48 of our perceptions is lost in the profusion49 of beauty.
But then, in that calmer season, when May has put on all its[578] wealth and splendour; when the fields are deep with grass, and golden and purple with flowers; when the hawthorn is a miracle of beauty and sweetness, perfuming the whole air, what paradises of delight are gardens—warm, flowery, odorous—happy with the hum of bees: and old orchards51, where you may witness what Coleridge so feelingly describes in a noble blank-verse letter to his brother:—
As now, on some delicious eve,
That hang above us in an arborous roof,
And thus it is through every season. In June and July, the glow and perpetual beauty of the country; the abundance of grass and flowers; the charm of river sides, of angling in woodland streams; the magnificence of thunder-storms; the breaking out of coolness and freshness after them; the delights of running waters; bathing and sailing; the fragrance57 of fields and gardens; the beauty of summer moonlight; the picturesque58 cheerfulness of hay-harvest; the enjoyment of rich mountain scenery; rambling59 amongst the brightness of morning dews, along valleys, past the outstretched feet of heathy hills; lying on some moorland slope conscious of all the singular hush28 and glow of noon; watching all the varying lights and hues60, listening to the varied61 sounds of evening in glens, now basking62 in the yellow calm sunshine, now deep in gloom; amid towering crags, by the dash of waters, or on some airy ridge32 that catches the last glow of heaven, taking in a vast stretch of scenes that defy alike the power of pen and pencil.
Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun!
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wild landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; a living thing[579]
Which acts upon the mind, and with such hues
Spirits perceive his presence.
Coleridge.
And then the corn-harvest, with all its happy human groups, and rich colours; the calm, steady splendour of autumn days; the deepening silence of the decaying year, its returning storms and pictorial67 tints68; the very gloom and awfulness with which the year retreats, sending the spirit inwards. In all these scenes and changes, the soul of the lover of Nature luxuriates; and even finds beauty and strength in the stern visitations of winter. He goes with Nature in all her rounds, and rejoices with her in all. There needs for him no great event, no combination of stirring circumstances; it is not even necessary to him that he be poet, or painter, or sportsman; if he have not the skill or faculty69 of any, he has the spirit of all. For him there are spread out in earth and heaven, pictures such as never graced the galleries of art. He sees splendours, and scenes painted by the hand of the Almighty, for whose faintest imitations the connoisseur70 would pay the price of an estate. To him every landscape presents beauty; to him every gale breathes pleasure; and every change of scene or season is a new unfolding of enjoyment. He knows nothing of the heart-burnings and jealousies71 which infest72 crowded places. He is not saddened by the sight of wickedness, or the experience of ingratitude73 and deceit. He is exempt74 from the ennui75 of polished society; the sneers76 of its unkindly criticism; and the hollowness of its professions. He converses77 with the Great Spirit which lives through the universe, and fills the hearts that open to its influence with purity, humanity, the sweetest sympathies, the most holy desires; and overshadows them with that profound peace and that inward satisfaction, which are themselves the most substantial happiness.
That these are no vain imaginations, but positive realities, scattered abroad for universal acceptance as much as the blessings of air and sunshine, we have only to open the works of our best writers to be convinced of;—to see how the expression of their happiness breaks from them continually. It is this overflowing78 and irrepressible gladness of a heart resting on nature which gives[580] such a charm to the writings of White and Evelyn, and good old Izaak Walton. And the poets—they are full of it. Listen to them, and then consider the nobility of their views, and the lofty purity of their souls, and then admit the power and depth of that influence which lives in Nature and speaks in Christianity.
So shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible79
Of that eternal language which thy God
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,—
Whether the summer clothe the genial earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the turfs of snow in the bare branch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall,
Heard only in the traces of the blast;
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet moon.
Coleridge.
And for the cordial, substantial, heart-filling contentment which is gathered from the quietness of rural life, hear what Sir Henry Wotton, a most accomplished83 man, who had seen much of court life, both at home and abroad, says,
Would the world now adopt me for her heir;
Would beauty’s queen entitle me the fair;
Angels[31] with India; with a speaking eye,
Command bare heads, bowed knees; strike justice dumb.
To stones by epitaphs; be called “great master”
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster—
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives;
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign,
Than ever fortune would have made them mine;
And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.
Welcome pure thoughts! welcome ye silent groves!
These guests, these courts my soul most dearly loves.
Now the winged people of the sky shall sing
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet virtue’s face.
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares,
And learn to affect a holy melancholy89:
And if contentment be a stranger then,
I’ll ne’er look for it but in heaven again.
[31] Piece of money value ten shillings.
Such are the pleasures that lie in the path of the lover of the country; pleasures like the blessings of the Gospel, to be had without money, and without price. There are many, no doubt, who will deem them dull and insignificant90; but the peace which they bring “passeth understanding,” and we can make a triumphant91 appeal from the frivolous92 and the dissipated, to the wise and noble of every country and age.
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1
dispersing
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| adj. 分散的 动词disperse的现在分词形式 | |
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primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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plantations
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| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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prodigality
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| n.浪费，挥霍 | |
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hawthorn
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| 山楂 | |
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lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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mellowness
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| 成熟； 芳醇； 肥沃； 怡然 | |
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blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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cleaves
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| v.劈开，剁开，割开( cleave的第三人称单数 ) | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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sonorously
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| adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；堂皇地；朗朗地 | |
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joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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gushing
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| adj.迸出的；涌出的；喷出的；过分热情的v.喷，涌( gush的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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prolific
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| adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的 | |
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margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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glades
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| n.林中空地( glade的名词复数 ) | |
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dame
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| n.女士 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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extremities
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| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
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41
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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anemone
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| n.海葵 | |
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bluebell
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| n.风铃草 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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sequestered
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| adj.扣押的；隐退的；幽静的；偏僻的v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的过去式和过去分词 )；扣押 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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basking
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| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的现在分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
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orb
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| n.太阳；星球；v.弄圆；成球形 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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kindle
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| v.点燃，着火 | |
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almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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pictorial
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| adj.绘画的；图片的；n．画报 | |
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tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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jealousies
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| n.妒忌( jealousy的名词复数 )；妒羡 | |
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72
infest
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| v.大批出没于；侵扰；寄生于 | |
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73
ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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74
exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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75
ennui
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| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
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76
sneers
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| 讥笑的表情（言语）( sneer的名词复数 ) | |
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77
converses
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的第三人称单数 ) | |
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78
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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79
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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80
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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81
thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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82
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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83
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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84
minion
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| n.宠仆；宠爱之人 | |
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85
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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86
anthems
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| n.赞美诗( anthem的名词复数 )；圣歌；赞歌；颂歌 | |
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87
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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88
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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89
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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90
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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91
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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92
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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