How swiftly the much-desired summer comes upon us! Even with the reapers
at work before one it is difficult to realise that it has not only come,
but will soon be passing away. Sweet summer is but just long enough for
the happy loves of the larks. It seems but yesterday, it is really more
than five months since, that, leaning against the gate there, I watched
a lark and his affianced on the ground among the grey stubble of last
year still standing.

His crest was high and his form upright, he ran a little way and then
sang, went on again and sang again to his love, moving parallel with
him. Then passing from the old dead stubble to fresh-turned furrows,
still they went side by side, now down in the valley between the clods,
now mounting the ridges, but always together, always with song and joy,
till I lost them across the brown earth. But even then from time to time
came the sweet voice, full of hope in coming summer.

The day declined, and from the clear, cold sky of March the moon looked
down, gleaming on the smooth planed furrow which the plough had passed.
Scarce had she faded in the dawn ere the lark sang again, high in the
morning sky. The evenings became dark; still he rose above the shadows
and the dusky earth, and his song fell from the bosom of the night. With
full untiring choir the joyous host heralded the birth of the corn; the
slender forceless seed-leaves which came gently up till they had risen
above the proud crests of the lovers.

Time advanced and the bare mounds about the field, carefully cleaned by
the husbandman, were covered again with wild herbs and plants, like a
fringe to a garment of pure green. Parsley and "gix," and clogweed, and
sauce-alone, whose white flowers smell of garlic if crushed in the
fingers, came up along the hedge; by the gateway from the bare trodden