SUMMER.

Summer is here, and her whole world of wealth is spread out before us in prodigal array. “The woods and groves have darkened and thickened into one impervious mass of sober, uniform green; and having, for a while, ceased to exercise the more active functions of the Spring, are resting from their labors in that state of ‘wise passiveness’ which we, in virtue of our infinitely greater wisdom, know so little how to enjoy. In Winter the trees may be supposed to sleep in a state of insensible inactivity, and in Spring to be laboring with the flood of new life that is pressing through their veins, and forcing them to perform the offices attached to their existence. But in Summer, having reached the middle term of their annual life, they pause in their appointed course, and then, if ever, taste the nourishment they take in, and ‘enjoy the air they breathe.’ And he who, sitting in Summer time beneath the shade of a spreading tree, can see its branches fan the soft breeze as it passes, and hear its polished leaves whisper and twitter to each other like birds at love-making, and yet can feel any thing like an assurance that it does not enjoy its existence, knows little of the tenure by which he holds his own.”

The animal creation seem oppressed with languor during this hot season, and either seek the recesses of woods, or resort to pools and streams, to cool their bodies and quench their thirst.

On the grassy bank

Some ruminating lie; while others stand

Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip

The circling surface. In the middle droops

The strong, laborious ox, of honest front,

Which incomposed he shakes; and from his sides

The troublous insects lashes with his tail,

Returning still. Amid his subjects safe

Slumbers the monarch swain; his careless arm

Thrown round his head on downy moss sustained,

Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands filled,

There, listening every noise, his watchful dog.

Thomson.

Notwithstanding the heat has parched the songsters of the grove into silence, there is still an audible music in nature—

The gnats

Their murmuring small trumpets sounden wide.

Spenser.

And John Keats points to another source of melody—

The poetry of earth is never dead;

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;

That is the grasshopper’s.

The insect tribe, however, are peculiarly active and vigorous in the hottest weather. These minute creatures are, for the most part, annual, being hatched in the Spring, and dying at the approach of Winter: they have therefore no time to lose in indolence, but must make the most of their short existence; especially as their most perfect state continues only during a part of their lives. How appropriately may Anacreon’s celebrated address to the Cicada be applied to many of the happy creatures which sport in the sunshine—

Blissful insect! what can be

In happiness compared to thee?

Fed with nourishment divine,

The dewy morning’s sweetest wine;

Nature waits upon thee still,

And thy fragrant cup does fill,

All the fields that thou dost see,

All the plants belong to thee;

All that Summer hours produce,

Fertile made with ripening juice;

Man for thee does sow and plough,

Farmer he, and landlord thou!

Thee the hinds with gladness hear,

Prophet of the ripened year!

To thee alone of all the earth,

Life is no longer than thy mirth:

Happy creature! happy thou,

Dost neither age nor winter know,

But when thou’st drank, and danced, and sung

Thy fill, the flow’ry leaves among,

Sated with the glorious feast,

Thou retir’st to endless rest.

Now is to be enjoyed in all its luxury the delightful amusement of bathing; and happy is the swimmer, who alone is able to enjoy the full pleasure of this healthful exercise. The power of habit to improve the natural faculties is in nothing more apparent than in the art of swimming. Man, without practice, is utterly unable to support himself in the water. Thomson finely describes this delightful recreation—

The sprightly youth

Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth

A sandy bottom shows. Awhile he stands

Gazing the inverted landscape, half afraid

To meditate the blue profound below;

Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.

His ebon tresses, and his rosy cheek

Instant emerge; and through the obedient wave,

At each short breathing by his lip repelled,

With arms and legs according well, he makes,

As humor leads, an easy-winding path;

While, from his polished sides, a dewy light

Effuses on the pleased spectators round.