Dormancy

“ Little did we suspect the mission of those rainy days, so drear and dismal without, or the sweet surprise preparing for us in the myriad mysteries of life beneath the sod, where every root and thread-like rootlet in the thirsty earth was drinking in that welcome moisture, and numberless sleeping germs, dwelling in darkness, were awakening into life to seek the light of day, waiting only for the glory of a sunny dawn to burst forth from their hiding-places! That sunny morn does come at last, and in its beams it sheds abroad a power that stirs the deepest root. ”

“ All is as still as death. But there is life there, just as I told you, in Part First, there is life in the seed, and in the trees that look so dead in winter. It is life asleep. The warmth of spring wakes up again the life in these animals, as it does the life in the trees. The blood then begins to circulate in them, as the sap does in the trees, and they come out from their hiding-places. ”

“ The decay of nature brings with it sad and solemn reflections, how much more the decay of the human form—of which autumn seems so striking an emblem. The days of man are few. Like the flower of the field he perisheth, and yet how few seem to realize it! O God, teach me to apply my heart unto wisdom. Help me to love and serve thee, that when "the heavens shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat" I may not be among those who shall take up the sad lamentation: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."—Oct., 1852. ”

“ Then come those closing days of dissolution, the saddest of the year, when all nature is filled with phantoms, and the gaunt and naked trees moan in the wind—every leaf a mockery, every breeze a sigh. The air seems weighed with a premonition of the dreariness to come. The landscape is darkened in a melancholy monotone, and death is written everywhere. You may walk the woods and fields for hours without a gleam of comfort or a cheering sound. ”

“ Even Spring, with its freshening gales and whispering zephyrs, when flower and bird, the springing grass and the murmuring brook, attest the birth of a new life from the icebound shroud of Winter, may suggest to the lonely mourner only the painful association of decay and death which hang like a sable pall over all familiar objects. ”

“ We would see spring, summer, and the red riot of autumn, and then in winter, beneath the soft white snow, sleep and dream of dreams. But we know that being dead, our Happiness is a fine and finished thing and that ten, a hundred, and a thousand years, we shall lie at rest, unhurt in the Court of Peace. ”

“ One of those bright autumn days when the clouds, and the sunshine, and the blue sky seem all interwoven together. A heavy black storm came sweeping upon the wind, and for a minute or two involved every thing in mist and in darkness, and then passed away, leaving behind a rich rainbow, and nature more beautiful for her tears, and the sun shining out on the gray ruin, seeming to smile at the decay of man's fabrics, while the works of Heaven remain unchanged and ever new. ”

“ A more appropriate emblem of death than the remains of the forest’s refreshing verdure could not be selected. Withered by the chill breath of ruthless Winter, the leaves strew the earth; and, in time, mingle with the dust, like ourselves. The eye cannot help watching how the winds pursue, scatter, whirl, and drive these remnants of departed life. ”

“ It was old. Storm-rocked for many centuries, it had grown One with the hills, the river and the sod; Yet young it was, with largess of red gold For every autumn, and from stores unknown Bringing each springtime treasure-trove to God. II.
Then came a night of terror and dismay, Uproar and lightning, with the furious sweep Of mighty winds, that raged from steep to steep, And ere it passed the great tree prostrate lay! ”

“ In the first fierce breath of winter the trees have shed their golden glories, while the few remaining leaves that still cling trembling to branch and bough, shrivelled up and blackened at their edges, present only that pallid, corpse-like hue that betokens approaching dissolution, making you sad and thoughtful as you gaze, and reminding you that everywhere, on all hands, last while it may, the end of all life is death. ”

“ But the spring revived me and my yearnings, and I grew certainly very handsome and tall for one of my branch of our family; but still only a little fern!
The forest decayed, I know not how. The marsh extended, and instead of the world of varied exuberant life, we lay a long time a mass of steaming, mouldering decay. And then, through millenniums more, we stiffened and hardened, and grew black and shapeless, and were buried in the dark, no one can say how long, for to us, throughout those changeless ages, there were no days and no seasons to measure time. ”

“ The solemn purple pall that adumbrated the world and the huge nothingness before them, so silent, so immutable and pregnant with terrible mysteries, brought them close together.
The vague, untrodden forest behind them, where the night-sounds of the wild dimly reechoed now and then, filled them with indefinable emotions. And that night sleep was slow in coming.
Each realized that, despite all calculations and all skill, the morrow might be their last day of life. But the morning light, golden and clear above the eastern sky-line of tall conifers, dispelled all brooding fears. ”

“ Just when our icy regions are becoming fruitful, and the flower-waves of the meadows are rolling together over our quarter of the globe, we on all hands meet with men in sables, the beginning of whose Spring is full of tears. But, on the other hand, this very upblooming of the renovated earth is itself the best balm for sorrow over those who lie under it; and graves are better hid by blossoms than by snow. ”

“ Reflects its tint and blushes into love
⁠The habitable earth is full of bliss;
Those wastes of frozen billows that were hurled
By everlasting snow-storms round the poles,
Where matter dared nor vegetate nor live,
But ceaseless frost round the vast solitude
Bound its broad zone of stillness, are unloosed ”

“ But not only was the changing recurrence of dreary winter and gladsome summer joined by affecting analogies with the human doom of death and hope of another life. The phenomena of the skies, the impressive succession of day and night, also were early seized upon and made to blend their shadows and lights, by means of imaginative suggestions, into an image of the decease and resurrection of man. ”

“ Open your eyes and ears, and receive instruction from the sights and sounds of Nature. We are dying: the sighing winds tell us so. {496} We are dying: the falling leaf tells us how Death will soon have power over us as a leaf carried away by the wind, and pursue us as a dry straw." [Footnote 241] We are dying: the harvest-man is discharged, so "our days are like the days of an hireling, and the end of labor draweth nigh." ”

“ Here beneath our cold skies we are every year reminded of decay and death in the withering grass, the falling leaves, and the bare branches of winter; the long waiting for Spring bids us look forward to a future away from this scene of death. ”

“ No wonder that we linger here while Nature, at this evening hour, speaks to us so tenderly and beautifully of rest. Even as yonder clouds break from the setting sun, and are tinged with glory by its parting beams, so our sorrow is illumined by this truth of the Resurrection. ”

“ Above them, as they slumber in graves that none may number.
Dawns grow to day, days dim to dusk, and dusks in darkness pass;
Unheeded springs are born, unheeded summers brighten,
And winters wake to whiten the wilderness of grass. ”

“ When the dead branch, blighted and blasted, Puts forth green leaves in the spring, Then the dream that life has outlasted Dead comfort to life may bring. I have changed the soil and the season, But whether skies freeze or flame, The soil they flame on or freeze on Is changed in little save name ”

“ The day passed; night wrapped the earth in darkness; bird, beast, and human creatures rested in sleep, save where the solitary lamp burned dimly in the sick-room or the aching heart forbade the eyes to slumber. ”

“ The currents of life stood still, and vegetation sank into a partially dormant state. Nature, resting, seemed forgetful of her human children. Day after day, week after week it had been the same,—sunshine, profuse, clear, steadfast and pitiless; air quiet and calm and listless. ”

“ Why, therefore, should we complain, or why lament the inevitable loss or change that time brings with it to all that breathe? Beneath the shadow of the tree we can yet repose, and tranquillise our spirit by its rustle, or by the "green light" uncheckered by one stirring leaf. ”

“ They have then looked abroad into nature, and have seen, that if death follows life, life seemingly emanates from death, and that the cheerful animations of spring succeed to the dead horrors of winter. ”

“ Born of great weariness, that broke his rest?—
A dream! a dream!—The autumn storm is on,
And sows the wood with witchcraft, and the leaves
Are chased by imps of darkness through the hail
And hurling rain. The wind is wild with leaves. ”

“ The days of our sojourning here are few, and perhaps much fewer than we imagine. What else is our life but a light vapour which is driven away and disappears with the wind? a blade of grass which is dried up in the heat of the sun? ”

“ Blossom the souls of them that died.
O Dead awake! Arise in bloom
Upon the joyous dawn of doom.
They rise up from the bleeding earth
In gracious legions of re-birth,
Each as a flower or a tree
Of verdant immortality. ”

“ Look along that glade of venerable oaks, huge, gnarled, and twisted, the duration of whose lives may be reckoned by centuries, yet still hale, vigorous and leaf-arrayed, whose outward and visible aspect during the little cycle of mortal existence that at present looks upon them, has shewn no appreciable change, and will probably with unvarying regularity continue to display their perennial Spring garniture, to many succeeding generations, long after the eyes that now behold them have closed for ever. ”

“ Just as the surface of the material world becomes dark and dreary, the soil dormant, the trees naked and bare and no beauty or freshness remains to cheer the darkness and desolation, so the winter of the spiritual cycle witnesses the death and disappearance of divine growth and extinction of the light and love of God. ”

“ Thus sleep, the emblem of death, is succeeded by renewed powers of activity and consciousness.
The changes of other animals which most resemble death furnish another analogy. The humble worm rolls itself up in its temporary tomb, and, after a short slumber, bursts forth to new life, clothed in more brilliant dyes, endued with more active capacities, and prepared to secure enjoyments before unknown. ”

“ But as no other power than that of the Sun can recall vegetation to life, this child of the earth would be represented as buried in a sleep from which the touch of the Sun alone could arouse her, when he slays the frost and cold which lie like snakes around her motionless form. ”

“ Some place, indeed, less bleak, with the appearance of warmth, if nothing more. So much indeed does the semblance of life lure us even in death; for of desire to live I now had none, and like a hunted animal, sought only a place in which to lie down and die.
In this mood, and looking forward, a cluster of oaks caught my eye, their brown leaves seeming to offer shelter and warmth from the fierce storm and biting cold. ”

“ The storm and the tempest, as well as the sunshine and the calm, will afford some sources of pleasure; and, as the fading away of the green leaf in the autumn enchants the eye by the resplendent coloring produced, decay will be found to decorate, and ruin to embellish. ”

“ Where is the constant man whom she is trying to find?
IV
Slumber and Sleep, two brothers appointed to serve the immortals,
By Prometheus were brought hither to comfort mankind;
But what in heaven was light, to human creatures was heavy:
Slumber became our Sleep, Sleep unto mortals was Death. ”

“ The fierce fires of superstition soared around it; but men leaped into the flames and beat them back, perishing, and the tree grew. With the sweat of their brow have men nourished its green leaves. Their tears have moistened the earth about it. With their blood they have watered its roots. ”

“ Amidst thick gloomy forests, impervious to the light of heaven,—upon solitary heaths and cheerless marshes, whose overhanging vapours obscure the bright sky and cast their gloom alike over the eye and spirit of men, need we wonder to find the fancy dwelling upon the stern and mournful? ”

“ But in the violated seed exults,
The bleakest winter through, a deathless pulse,
Beating, “Spring wipes this sacrilege away.”
No less shall I in some new fashion flare
Again, when death has blown my candles out ”

“ Vain longings for the dead!—why come they back
With thy young birds, and leaves, and living blooms?
Oh! is it not, that from thine earthly track
Hope to thy world may look beyond the tombs?
Yes! gentle spring; no sorrow dims thine air. ”

“ It is like that general activity of life, to which amid the mild breathings of spring, the torpid animal awakes, that, in continual winter would have slumbered forever in insensibility,—or, like the bud, which, without warmth and moisture, never could have burst from the leafless stem ”

“ A form of strange beauty is floating along On the soft summer air, and the Future draws near, With a light on her young face, unshadowed and clear. Two garlands she bears in the arms that not yet Have toiled ’neath the burden and heat of the day ”