Summer Down the Lane

Summer down the lane ….

I don’t know why, but midsummer makes me wistful and even a little melancholy. The year has hit it’s stride…summer is stretching out before us, but we have reached the peak, and we are heading back down the slope.

I love to sit in the meadow and listen. There is a real cacophony once you tune in, and when you are still the birds and butterflies take to the wing.

Go the long way, the long way home.

Go the long way, the long way home.
Over this gate and that lean, at the three lanes’ meeting delay,

Look well at that field of hay, eye closely the drilled loam,
Finger the springing corn, count every petal
Of the hedge rose and the guelder rose.
Under the bosom of the blossomed elder stay,
Delay, linger, browse deep on all this green and all this growing,
Slant cheek to the sweet air, with deep greeting survey
The full-leaved boughs like water flowing,
The corn-waves hurrying uphill as the wind blows.
Look overhead into the blue, look round,
Watch this bird fly and that bird settle,
With slow treading and sure greet the assuring ground:
Go slowly, for slowly goes this midsummer day,
And this is the last time you will come this way.

Go the long way, the long way home.
Aye, and when you’ve arrived and the sighing gate falls to,
Go slowly, go heedfully your garden through.
Breathe in the spice pinks, turn face up to the soft
Ripe rose that wags aloft,
Nod to the old rake, rub thumbs along the spade’s edge,

Measure the potato hills and the tall bean rows,
Pledge cherry and currant bush, pledge lily and lily leaf spear
And rebel the nettles waving along the hedge;
Look closely, look well,
See how your garden grows,
Ponder yourself even into the secret cell
Of this year’s honeycomb:
Look long, for long has this been yours and long been dear,
And this is the last time you will stand here.

Go the long way, the long way home.
Though you are weary, hasten not ghost to ground,
Tarry this last hour out, take your last look round,
Greet finally the earth, greet leaf and root and stock.
Stand in your last hour poised, like the dandelion clock-
Frail ghost of the gaudy raggle-taggle that you were-
Stand up, O homing phantom, stand up intact and declare
The goodness of earth the greatest good you found,
Ere the wind jolts you, and you vanish like the foam

Sylvia Townsend Warner

Not quite ready to vanish like the foam, but Sylvia’s reflections on the passing of time and her beautiful observations of a midsummer day in the countryside have always beguiled me. I find myself taking the long way home with some regularity. Also, I must plant some pinks!

Photography Sussie Bell