The "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" comes long before the
maples are crimson and the birches yellow. The splendor of the summer is
very brief. If it be really hot, July is not over before you may see the
leaves slightly shrivelling, and the woods have a half-crisp, curdled
aspect. The intense heat of the year gives a sense of violent and rapid
struggle, as if all the natural processes were wonderfully accelerated
by an access of fever, and the long cool repose of convalescence follows
in the clear, bright autumn days.
The enjoyment of these things is a kind of test of character. If a man
found himself ceasing to take pleasure in the moon and flowers and
children--if the red leaf of the fall gave him the same emotion as the
green leaf of the spring--he might well feel that he was old and his
heart worn out.
The finest sight is the autumn of age, like that of the year. Some men
shrivel and dry up as they grow old. Some become coarse, or cynical, or
sad. Some, after a noble promise and even a full flowering, ripen no
fruit at all, and leave only a few reluctant and blighted results. Some
stand covered with "nurly" balls, hard, dry, and useless. Others are
stripped and bare. But a genial, golden age has all the qualities of a
warm October day. There is soft repose upon the landscape. No harsh
winds blow, no sharp chills freeze. The distance on all sides is
delicate and lost in luminous haze. Behind, it is romantic and fair;
before, it is beautiful and alluring. On all the misty hill-tops visible
summer seems to linger. The fields are crimson and yellow with the
riches of the orchard; the purple grape glistens kindly, and the golden
pumpkin lies comfortably under the stooks of dry corn. In the woods the
light winds shake the trees and the dropping nuts patter upon the
fallen leaves. Along the road the profuse golden-rod waves its bright
spray, and the cool, scentless asters gleam like pallid stars. The heat
is so honest that the round earth seems to bask in it with conscious
joy. That shining sky hides no lightning. It hangs serenely over--a
visible benediction. Night and day the barn doors stand wide open, and
the great barn is bursting with its heaped treasures. The wagons come
and go, and the beat of the flail begins. Bright and beautiful and
abundant is the cheery scene, but there is a pervading sense of
accomplishment. The cattle graze in the pastures, and in the meadows
where the growth is over. The harvest fields will clearly do no more.
The green of June has faded into the russet of October, and even the
gorgeous leaves burn, a hectic hue, upon the landscape. The earth has
done its work for the year, and there is a feeling of gathering in, of
closing the doors, and of going to rest.
When the autumn of a man's life is thus sweet and fruitful and serene,
we see how outward nature merely hints and foreshows its master. In
great, visible, palpable operations and results it images the fine and
unmarked processes that go on in man. And yet, by its unfailing method,
its annual return, the regular spring and bud and flower and fruit, it
is a ceaseless, silent monitor. Measured by our own lives, how touching
the fidelity of the year! Who is not rebuked by the honest apple-tree in
his own garden? The plums are more like us. They are almost infallibly
stung by the curculio. But how many a man who fights the curculio with
all his fortune is himself stung all over by selfishness and pride! We
might well be ashamed to walk in the woods. The mute obedience of the
trees ought to be too impressive for us. Yes, in the long autumn nights
they wrestle and roar. Their mighty voice thunders out and smites the
heart of the awakening sleeper. But will you claim that it is their
protest against the inevitable law, that they too are rebellious and
forgetful and disdainful as we are? It seems to me only piercingly sad
in its wildest tumult. It is the blind king feeling for his peers and
crying out when he does not find them. "Lords of the world" shout the
autumn woods, tossing their branches and groping blindly in the
air--"men and women who are the latest born, the Benjamins of heaven,
who are set over us to subdue and govern, ye alone, in all the wide
creation, are false and heedless! What man of you all is as true and
noble for a man as the oak upon your hill-top for an oak? The oak obeys
every law, regularly increases and develops, stretches its shady arms of
blessing, proudly wears its leafy coronal, and drops abundant acorns for
future oaks as faithful; but who of ye all does not violate the law of
your life--so that we, if we follow you, would be so death-struck with
dry-rot that the trees would fail upon every hand and the earth become a
desert!"
So wail and roar the storm-swept autumn woods. In the late October
nights you may awaken, when the world is lost in the mystery of
darkness, and hear that appealing cry. Time and civilization have slain
the dryads and sweet sylvan populace, as Herod slew the innocents. But
although common-sense has buried them, the imagination will not let them
die. They survive in other forms, and with other voices they speak to
us--not as the spirits of the trees, but as their conscious life, they
yet whisper, and our hearts listen. Let the hickories and pine-trees
preach to us a little in these warm October afternoons. A stately elm is
the archbishop of my green diocese. In full canonicals he stands
sublime. His flowing robes fill the blithe air with sacred grace. The
light west winds and watery south are his fresh young deacons, his
ecclesiastical aides-de-camp. He rules the landscape round. And I--this
penitent old Easy Chair--attend devoutly when I hear the eloquent
rustling of his voice--as the neighbors of Saint George Herbert, of
Bemerton, used to stop their ploughs in the furrow and bow, with
uncovered head, while the sound of his chapel-bell tinkled in the air.