THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

I



Green rushes, long and thick, standing up above the edge of the ditch,
told the hour of the year as distinctly as the shadow on the dial the
hour of the day. Green and thick and sappy to the touch, they felt like
summer, soft and elastic, as if full of life, mere rushes though they
were. On the fingers they left a green scent; rushes have a separate
scent of green, so, too, have ferns, very different to that of grass or
leaves. Rising from brown sheaths, the tall stems enlarged a little in
the middle, like classical columns, and heavy with their sap and
freshness, leaned against the hawthorn sprays. From the earth they had
drawn its moisture, and made the ditch dry; some of the sweetness of the
air had entered into their fibres, and the rushes--the common
rushes--were full of beautiful summer. The white pollen of early grasses
growing on the edge was dusted from them each time the hawthorn boughs
were shaken by a thrush. These lower sprays came down in among the grass,
and leaves and grass-blades touched. Smooth round stems of angelica, big
as a gun-barrel, hollow and strong, stood on the slope of the mound,
their tiers of well-balanced branches rising like those of a tree. Such a
sturdy growth pushed back the ranks of hedge parsley in full white
flower, which blocked every avenue and winding bird's-path of the bank.
But the "gix," or wild parsnip, reached already high above both, and
would rear its fluted stalk, joint on joint, till it could face a man.
Trees they were to the lesser birds, not even bending if perched on; but
though so stout, the birds did not place their nests on or against them.
Something in the odour of these umbelliferous plants, perhaps, is not