Now comes the good old summertime. It is that time of year
when nature, quietly but impressively, demonstrates its growing power. Trees
have completed the old but ever amazing process of putting forth their
thousands of leaves. I’ve always wondered how a tree knows when to adorn itself
with leaves and how it does it. From the stark, bare branches of winter to the
green leaves of summer is one of the astonishing miracles by which nature adds charm
and beauty to our lives.
Flowers everywhere are adding to summer’s festive character
and the songs of birds joyously fill the air. Nests are in the trees and other
nooks which father and mother birds have carefully selected. Balmy breezes blow
softly and golden sunshine filters down through branches to fall gently upon
clipped green grass. Corn is coming up in the fields. As the old saying goes, “It
will be knee-high by the Fourth of July.” Wind ripples caressingly over the
growing wheat. At such times we may find ourselves repeating those familiar and
famous lines from The Vision of Sir Launfal
by James Russell Lowell:
And what is so rare as a day in
June
then, if ever, come perfect days
Then Heaven tries earth if it be
in tune
and over it softly her warm ear
lays
Whether we look, or whether we
listen
we hear life murmur, or see it
glisten
Every clod feels a stir of might
an instinct within it that reaches
and towers
And, groping blindly above it for
light
climbs to a soul in grass and
flowers
Everything is perfection since good God, the Creator, designed
and made it all. And He never did anything badly. But, with all respectful
deference, I cannot help wondering, come every summer, just why the Lord
thought it necessary to make mosquitoes and flying insects. Oh, I know it has
to do with nature’s balance and all that; still I must confess those creatures
surely interfere with the perfect pleasures of summertime.
A few years ago, I purchased two old—fashioned rocking chairs
from a firm down in Georgia that has been making them since before the Civil
War, or if you’re reading this down South, the “War Between the States.” We
have an 1830 house in Dutchess County, New York, just over the Connecticut
line. It stands on a hill overlooking a great valley, its white pillars marking
the wide front porch, which looks west toward the Hudson River.
Around the corner is a side porch looking over a valley southward.
And the back porch off the kitchen looks over another valley into Connecticut. Here
were placed these great rocking chairs. From this peaceful vantage, we look over
a wide sweep of land, through great maples, across the valley to hills beyond.
On a warm summer afternoon or in the cool of twilight, I
like to sit here with my wife, Ruth, rocking in perfect enjoyment until the
mosquitoes surge in to attack all exposed parts and the gnats come en masse,
buzzing and stinging. So, finally, I retreat inside the house thinking not the
most kindly thoughts about summer. But actually, not even that affects the joy
and glory of summer, the beautiful season at the fullness of the year. Sometimes
on a peaceful and lovely summer day I find myself reciting these lines of
Robert W. Service:
The summer—no sweeter was ever
The sunshiny woods all athrill
The grayling aleap in the river
The bighorn asleep on the hill
The strong life that never knows
harness
The wilds where the caribou call
The freshness, the freedom, the
farness—
O God! how I’m stuck on it all
From childhood to old age we love it, the good old summertime.
