quite liked; if brushed or bruised they give out a bitter greenish scent.
Under their cover, well shaded and hidden, birds build, but not against
or on the stems, though they will affix their nests to much less certain
supports. With the grasses that overhung the edge, with the rushes in the
ditch itself, and these great plants on the mound, the whole hedge was
wrapped and thickened. No cunning of glance could see through it; it
would have needed a ladder to help any one look over.

It was between the may and the June roses. The may-bloom had fallen, and
among the hawthorn boughs were the little green bunches that would feed
the redwings in autumn. High up the briars had climbed, straight and
towering while there was a thorn, or an ash sapling, or a yellow-green
willow to uphold them, and then curving over towards the meadow. The buds
were on them, but not yet open; it was between the may and the rose.

As the wind, wandering over the sea, takes from each wave an invisible
portion, and brings to those on shore the ethereal essence of ocean, so
the air lingering among the woods and hedges--green waves and
billows--became full of fine atoms of summer. Swept from notched hawthorn
leaves, broad-topped oak-leaves, narrow ash sprays and oval willows; from
vast elm cliffs and sharp-taloned brambles under; brushed from the waving
grasses and stiffening corn, the dust of the sunshine was borne along and
breathed. Steeped in flower and pollen to the music of bees and birds,
the stream of the atmosphere became a living thing. It was life to
breathe it, for the air itself was life. The strength of the earth went
up through the leaves into the wind. Fed thus on the food of the
Immortals, the heart opened to the width and depth of the summer--to the
broad horizon afar, down to the minutest creature in the grass, up to the
highest swallow. Winter shows us Matter in its dead form, like the
Primary rocks, like granite and basalt--clear but cold and frozen