The heat is greatest in this month on account of its previous duration.
The reason why it is less so in August is, that the days are then much
shorter, and the influence of the sun has been gradually diminishing.
The farmer is still occupied in getting the productions of the earth
into his garners; but those who can avoid labour enjoy as much rest and
shade as possible. There is a sense of heat and quiet all over nature.
The birds are silent. The little brooks are dried up. The earth is
chapped with parching. The shadows of the trees are particularly
grateful, heavy, and still. The oaks, which are freshest because latest
in leaf, form noble clumpy canopies; looking, as you lie under them, of
a strong and emulous green against the blue sky. The traveller delights
to cut across the country through the fields and the leafy lanes, where,
nevertheless, the flints sparkle with heat. The cattle get into the
shade or stand in the water. The active and air-cutting-swallows, now
beginning to assemble for migration, seek their prey about the shady
places; where the insects, though of differently compounded natures,
"fleshless and bloodless," seem to get for coolness, as they do at other
times for warmth. The sound of insects is also the only audible thing
now, increasing rather than lessening the sense of quiet by its gentle
contrast. The bee now and then sweeps across the ear with his gravest
tone. The gnats
"Their murmuring small trumpets sounden wide:"--SPENSER.
and here and there the little musician of the grass touches forth his
tricksy note.
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.[1]
[1] _Poems_, by John Keats, p. 93.
The strong rains, which sometimes come down in summer-time, are a noble
interruption to the drought and indolence of hot weather. They seem as
if they had been collecting a supply of moisture equal to the want of
it, and come drenching the earth with a mighty draught of freshness. The
rushing and tree-bowing winds that precede them, the dignity with which
they rise in the west, the gathering darkness of their approach, the
silence before their descent, the washing amplitude of their
out-pouring, the suddenness with which they appear to leave off, taking
up, as it were, their watery feet to sail onward, and then the sunny
smile again of nature, accompanied by the "sparkling noise" of the
birds, and those dripping diamonds the rain-drops;--there is a grandeur
and a beauty in all this, which lend a glorious effect to each other;
for though the sunshine appears more beautiful than grand, there is a
power, not even to be looked upon, in the orb from which it flows; and
though the storm is more grand than beautiful, there is always beauty
where there is so much beneficence.--_The Months_.