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    The Pageant of Summer
    The Pageant of Summer
    The Pageant of Summer
    Ebook47 pages36 minutes

    The Pageant of Summer

    By Richard Jefferies

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    A beautiful poetic essay that sums up, and revels in all that is stunning and overwhelming about a summers evening in the British countryside. Every detail is perfectly observed, almost to clearly defined, leading the author to question something so beautiful can really be seen or is just an illusion.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriOnlineShopping.com
    Release dateDec 19, 2018
    ISBN9788832517736
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      The Pageant of Summer - Richard Jefferies

      II.

      The Pageant of Summer, by Richard Jefferies

      The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pageant of Summer, by Richard Jefferies

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The Pageant of Summer

      Author: Richard Jefferies

      Release Date: January 18, 2007 [eBook #414]

      Language: English

      Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

      ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER***

      Transcribed from the 1914 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email [email protected]

      THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER

      by

      RICHARD JEFFERIES

      london

      CHATTO & WINDUS

      1914

      I.

      Green rushes, long and thick, standing up above the edge of the ditch, told the hour of the year as distinctly as the shadow on the dial the hour of the day. Green and thick and sappy to the touch, they felt like summer, soft and elastic, as if full of life, mere rushes though they were. On the fingers they left a green scent; rushes have a separate scent of green, so, too, have ferns, very different from that of grass or leaves. Rising from brown sheaths, the tall stems enlarged a little in the middle, like classical columns, and heavy with their sap and freshness, leaned against the hawthorn sprays. From the earth they had drawn its moisture, and made the ditch dry; some of the sweetness of the air had entered into their fibres, and the rushes—the common rushes—were full of beautiful summer. The white pollen of early grasses growing on the edge was dusted from them each time the hawthorn boughs were shaken by a thrush. These lower sprays came down in among the grass, and leaves and grass-blades touched. Smooth round stems of angelica, big as a gun-barrel, hollow and strong, stood on the slope of the mound, their tiers of well-balanced branches rising like those of a tree. Such a sturdy growth pushed back the ranks of hedge parsley in full white flower, which blocked every avenue and winding bird’s-path of the bank. But the gix, or wild parsnip, reached already high above both, and would rear its fluted stalk, joint on joint, till it could face a man. Trees they were to the lesser birds, not even bending if perched on; but though so stout, the birds did not place their nests on or against them. Something in the odour of these umbelliferous plants, perhaps, is not quite liked; if brushed or bruised they give out a bitter greenish scent. Under their cover, well shaded and hidden, birds build, but not against or on the stems, though they will affix their nests to much less certain supports. With the grasses that overhung the edge, with the rushes in the ditch itself, and these great plants on the mound, the whole hedge was wrapped and thickened. No cunning of glance could see through it; it would have needed a ladder to

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