July

“ B. W. Procter.
Song of July.
July is a rare old fellow,
He’s a month when the sun does shine;
He makes the pear quite mellow,
Sagittarius is his sign.
Hurra, hurra! though we don’t know why,
For that rare old month—a hot July.
The Quail, that ne’er deceives us,
Now makes his morning call;
The fickle cuckoo leaves us,
But that’s the way with them all.
Then hurra, hurra! though we don’t know why,
For that blazing month—a hot July.
Punch’s Almanac. 1846.
THE RETURN OF THE ADMIRAL.
How gallantly, how merrily we ride along the sea! ”

“ Had the human being who passes July in the plains but one window to the soul and that the eye, the month would be one of pure joy, a month spent in the contemplation of splendid dawns, brilliant days, the rich green mantle of the earth, the majesty of approaching thunderclouds, and superb sunsets. ”

“ It is a cool day in July, and the shaded sunlight slowly steals and disappears over the landscape. There are none of those sudden flashes which come when the clouds are more sharply defined and the blue is more intense. ”

“ June passed away in delightful bird-study, and July followed quickly. Nests and songs in plenty rewarded our search. Every day had been full. Nothing had been wanting to fill our cup of content, except the longed-for song of the hermit; and I had been so absorbed I had almost ceased to regret it.
With the last days of July everything was changed about us. The world was full of bird babies. Infant voices rang out from every tangle; flutters of baby wings stirred every bush; the woods echoed to anxious "pips," and "smacks," and "quits," of uneasy parents working for dear life. ”

“ June came and went, followed by July and August, with their burning splendor of sunlight and heat. Many of the flowers bloomed in sweetness for a little while, and then dropped their leaves and died to earthly things, and passed away to the heaven where flowers bloom forever. Others, fragrant and fresh and fair, came to take their places, and so the whole world was sweet until the autumn came. ”

“ Such was the gossip about Mrs. Smiley, a year and a half after the night of the high tide.
It was the afternoon of a July day, in Astoria; and, since we have given the reader so dismal a picture of December, let us, in justice, say a word about this July day. All day long the air had been as bright and clear as crystal, and the sun had sparkled on the blue waters of the noblest of rivers without blinding the eyes with glare, or sickening the senses with heat. Along either shore rose lofty highlands, crowned with cool-looking forests of dark-green firs. ”

“ July enters, returning, without the kettle and stand.
Sir John.
July!—'S death!—July! or ass, or broom,
More you'd heed, when passing to a room.
July, (stopping.)
'S life—Just-Ass o-Peace!—Is that you there?
Sir John.
Yes—in this dark press behind the stair,
Where you throw old besoms, boots, and shoes.—
Come here, and tell me what is the news?—
Your opinion of things in general?—
Your stories? I know you've got several.
July. ”

“ In England and in Sweden, May Day is given up to dance and song and flower shows. This festival began in honor of Odin, the old Norse god of the sun.
June has no day that is remembered as a universal holiday. But in July we find the greatest day of the year—the Fourth of July, Independence Day. Every child knows that on this day our nation was born. The flags, the drums, the trumpets, the cannon,—all awaken in the breast of every American a thrill of love and pride that will never pass away. ”

“ To Dosia, sitting there by the little plot of tulips, the sun was the brilliant sun of July, and those scarlet tulips a garden wide and far-reaching, an endless vista of flowers, the blue sky an endless vault above her—high noon and midsummer, with that sweet-scented warmth at the busy heart of things, a circle of infinite life humming in the low grasses, in the almost windless, hardly stirring air. Warmth and color and life, at high noon, listening close to the heart of things. ”

“ July is the time for those misty white racemes to be coming into bloom and sending down the wind that spicy, delectable fragrance that seems to tempt him who breathes it to adventure forth in search of all woodland romance. ”

“ Stand grave, mute forests of eternal green;
And here the lady, born in wind and rain,
Comes oft to moan and clap her palms with pain.
This is our wild-faced July, in whose breast
Is never faultless light or perfect rest. ”

“ Farther south the withering heat hints of July; farther north there may be an edge of cold to the air; but in Georgia it is always perfectly June in June, all softness, fragrance, filled with the fearless growth and bloom of every living thing—the sort of day that seems to hum to itself with the wings of a thousand bees; adolescent weather, fragrant, soft, filled with the growth and yearning of every living thing from the frailest flower that blooms to the oldest tree and the oldest man. ”

“ March will bluster, April will weep; May will smile through her tears by day and freeze us with her frosts at night, and July will stupefy us with thunderstorms, and August scorch us with heat one day and drench us to the skin the next. ”

“ Whether the setting sun steeps the current in liquid, tremulous light, or the wild, tempestuous blasts of January heap up the waters in dark and chaffing masses, all is beautiful; and men go forth to gaze in quiet enjoyment on the peaceful flow of July, or to enrich and stimulate their feelings with the all-conquering power of the down-rushing torrent of March. ”

“ May, June, and July have too much heat and violence, the Autumn withers the Summer's gayety, and in the Winter the hopeful blossoms of Spring and fair fruits of Summer are decayed, and storms and clouds arise. ”

“ O sunny joys of sunny June, how soon will you be scorched by the eager months coming burning from the equator!
July. Rouse up! The temperate heats that filled the air are raging forward to glow and overfill the earth. There are deep and unreached places for whose sake the probing sun pierces down its glowing hands. The earth shall drink of the heat before she knows her nature or [102] her strength. Then shall she bring forth to the uttermost the treasures of her bosom. For there are things hidden far down, and the deep things of life are not known till the fire reveals them. ”

“ SUMMER FLOWERS The end of June and beginning of July—when the days are hot and long, and the earth is warm, and our summer flowers are in fullest mass and beauty—what a time of gladness it is, and of that full and thankful delight that is the sure reward for the labour and careful thoughtfulness of the last autumn and winter, and of the present earlier year! ”

“ Walk out any one of the fine evenings in July, grandest of all months, just when the sun is leaving us, far away in the north-west, amidst an amber sky, with not a vestige of cloud above, and just as he finally dips, the strong probability is that you will be startled at first, and then delighted, with the quick cry of the “whip-poor-will.” ”

“ BYEZHIN PRAIRIE
It was a glorious July day, one of those days which only come after many days of fine weather. From earliest morning the sky is clear; the sun-rise does not glow with fire; it is suffused with a soft roseate flush. The sun, not fiery, not red-hot as in time of stifling drought, not dull purple as before a storm, but with a bright and genial radiance, rises peacefully behind a long and narrow cloud, shines out freshly, and plunges again into its lilac mist. ”

“ This is the month of heat and sunshine, of clear, fervid skies, dusty roads, and shrinking streams; when doors and windows are thrown open, a cool gale is the most welcome of all visiters, and every drop of rain "is worth its weight in gold." Such is July commonly—such it was in 1825, and such, in a scarcely less degree, in 1826; yet it is sometimes, on the contrary, a very showery month, putting the hay-maker to the extremity of his patience, and the farmer upon anxious thoughts for his ripening corn; generally speaking, however, it is the heart of our summer. ”

“ Mid breezes æstival, enchantingly sweet!
When hay-scented meadows with oarsmen are crowded—
Whose bright tinted blazers gay toilettes outvie—
When sunshine is hot and the sky is unclouded,
O, Henley is splendid in lovely July!
Ah me! what a revel of exquisite colours,
What costumes in pink and in white and in blue,
By smart canoistes and by pretty girl-scullers,
Are sported in randan, in skiff, and canoe! 205
What sun-shaded lasses we see out a-punting,
What fair gondoliere perchance we espy.
And house-boats and launches all blossom and bunting—
O, Henley's a picture in merry July! ”

“ And a dust of gold falls everywhere from the soft midsummer's wing,
I only know from my poets, or from pictures that hither come,
Sweet with the smile of the hawthorn-hedge and the scent of the harvest-home.
But July in our own New England—I bask myself in its prime,
As one in the light of a face he loves, and has not seen for a time!
Again the perfect blue of the sky; the fresh green woods; the call
Of the crested jay; the tangled vines that cover the frost-thrown wall:
Sounds and shadows remembered well! ”

“ How early in the summer, too, the prophecy of autumn comes! Earlier in some years than in others; sometimes even in the first weeks of July. There is no other feeling like what is caused by this faint, doubtful, yet real perception—if it be not rather a foreboding—of the year’s decay, so blessedly sweet and sad in the same breath. ”

“ Not so—the all-benignant skies
Rebuked that fear of famished eyes—
July passed on with showers and dew
And August glowed in showerless blue;
No harvest time could be more fair
Had harvest fruits but ripened there. ”

“ In the summer it will defy the fierce heat of the July sun with the same armor, sitting here with its feet in the burning sand and its tall spike tossing back the sunshine with a laugh from its golden efflorescence. ”

“ There is plenty for everybody to do in July, though the barley will not put on its dazzling whiteness till the end of the month, nor the red wheat yet look as if it was tanned by the sun. We call it an interval of leisure between the hay and the corn harvests; but there is plenty to do and to learn, as my lads and I shall find, from beginning to end of our holiday time. If there is any leisure, it is when St. Swithin’s Day makes good its old promise; but July rains keep no rational people within doors for many hours at a time. ”

“ In the mellow golden sunshine of the still October days it is sometimes difficult to realise that the glory of the year has passed beyond recall, though the sunshine has no longer the genial warmth of July, and the more delicate flowers are already shrivelled by the first furtive touches of winter's finger-tips. ”

“ And June had become July, and midsummer lay fast over the half-empty town.
It was a summer that broke records for heat, and those fled from it who could. But in the industrious backwaters of towns, where steady work means steady bread, it is the custom of men to take the climate as it comes to them, freezing or sweating at the weather-man's desire. ”

“ July is the month of climax for the gardener who grows only annual flowers raised afresh each year from seed. A very fine show he may have, too, during his somewhat brief season. To the grower of herbaceous plants who aims, and wisely aims, at having flowers all the year through, July is but one month out of twelve. Spring means for him not a season for sowing, so much as a very flowery season, full of Crocuses and Anemones, of Primroses and of Hepaticas; for him even winter itself is not flowerless, since he has his Hellebores and winter Aconites and fragrant Coltsfoot. ”

“ It is a thrilling experience to set foot at last on midsummer snow sweeping upwards, gleaming toward the higher summits, snow that never entirely melts and that is so dazzling in the July sunlight that one needs dark or colored glasses to avoid snow blindness if the tramp is to be a long one. ”

“ AUTUMN DAYS HE "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. ”

“ Green July, gliding smoothly on the noiseless axles of its diurnal wheels, gives way at last to golden August, and beneath the assiduous burning of the sun the cornfields begin to brown like the crust of a pasty under the brasing iron. It is the mystic eve of harvest, that consummation of the farmer's year, and all the countryside is palpitating with it. ”

“ Down comes July, not without a stumble now and then, over boulder or bramble, but looking very much as if she floated on the sweet atmosphere which streams down fresh and full from the top of the hill, and the elastic spring air could bear her well enough upon its sunny current for all the weight she has. Very simple are the girlish salutations exchanged when the friends meet. “Eh, Menie, where are you going?” ”

“ It was pleasant walking across the moor. The July sun was powerful, but to ageing men the warmth and vital influences of the orb of day are welcome, precious, and salutary. An English summer is seldom or never too warm for those who are conscious that but few such summers are left to them, and David Helmsley was moved by a devout sense of gratitude that on this fair and tranquil morning he was yet able to enjoy the lovely and loving beneficence of all beautiful and natural things. ”