Meadow-sweet

“ But a meadow is a delicate embroidery in colors, which you must examine closely to understand all its merits; the nearer you are, the better. One must bend over the grass to find the blue violet in May, the red strawberry in June; one should be close at hand to mark the first appearance of the simple field-blossoms, clover, red and white, buttercup and daisy, with the later lily, and primrose, and meadow-tuft; one should be nigh to breathe the sweet and fresh perfume, which increases daily until the mowers come with their scythes. ”

“ On either side of them, as they glided onwards, the rich meadow-grass seemed that morning of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable. Never had they noticed the roses so vivid, the willow-herb so riotous, the meadow-sweet so odorous and pervading. Then the murmur of the approaching weir began to hold the air, and they felt a consciousness that they were nearing the end, whatever it might be, that surely awaited their expedition. ”

“ It was beside a rocky ledge which ran through the middle of a bit of meadow-land, and happily defied being cultivated, although it supported a flourishing crop of wildings,—scattering elm, oak, and pine trees, with sumac, goldenrod, and other sweet things to fill up the tangle. Under a low-spreading tree I placed my seat: at my back the screening rocks, in front a strip of meadow waiting for the mower. Along the side where I entered ran a stone wall, but before me was a stretch of delightfully dilapidated old board and pole fence. ”

“ Alternate, oval or oblong, saw-edged. Preferred Habitat - Low meadows, swamps, fence-rows, ditches. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Newfoundland to Georgia, west to Rocky Mountains. Europe and Asia.
Fleecy white plumes of meadow-sweet, the "spires of closely clustered bloom" sung by Dora Read Goodale, are surely not frequently found near dusty "waysides scorched with barren heat," even in her Berkshires; their preference is for moister soil, often in the same habitat with a first cousin, the pink steeple-bush. But plants, like humans, are capricious creatures. ”

“ Grass is a liquid that washes earth's face till it shines like that of a clean, healthy child. But clover prefers to stand in pools and eddies, in which oft and oft I have seen the breasts of meadow larks shine like gold, the while a few sweet notes, like rung silver, rose and trembled above the trefoil, all woven, in and out, through the swash of the wind's palpitant currents—a music of unspeakable influence. Swallows skim the surface of grass just as they do that of water. ”

“ Nothing could be more generous, more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. The flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the myriad voices of gleeful bobolinks, the chirp and gurgle of red-winged blackbirds swaying on the willows, the meadow-larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie chick and the wailing call of plover on the flowery green slopes of the uplands made it all an ecstatic world to me. It was a wide world with a big, big sky which gave alluring hint of the still more glorious unknown wilderness beyond. ”

“ I was walking in a meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting, after a cold gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves of the shrub-oaks on the hill-side, while our shadows stretched long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. ”

“ Longer and longer tree-shadows come creeping over the grass, making the light beyond them so much the brighter and lovelier. The oak leaves shimmer as the wind twists the branches. The green aftermath is of all exquisite shades. A beautiful bit of the world. The meadow is like a cup. ”

“ One such I knew, despised of men as a meadow, no doubt, but glorious to the eye with its unbroken stretch of white bowing before the summer breeze like the waves of the sea, and charming as well to pewee and kingbird who hovered over it, ever and anon diving and bringing up food for the nestlings. When, to a meadow not so completely abandoned to daisies, where buttercups and red clover flourish among the grass, is added the music of the meadow's poet, the bobolink, surely nothing is lacking to its perfection. ”

“ A meadow wholly surrounded by woods is frequently selected. The ideal place to search for a nest of the species is in one of those woodland meadows, which has a clear brook flowing through it, with briers, tussocks of grass and a fresh growth of goldenrod scattered around in profusion, with birch trees and wild grape vines growing near the edges where the meadow meets higher ground—and all this bordered by tall oak, chestnut and maple trees which furnish an abundance of shade to the vegetation of the meadow itself. ”

“ In rare instances we find an alpine basin the bottom of which is a perfect meadow, and the sides nearly all the way round, rising in gentle curves, are covered with moraine soil, which, being saturated with melting snow from encircling fountains, gives rise to an almost continuous girdle of down-curving meadow vegetation that blends gracefully into the level meadow at the bottom, thus forming a grand, smooth, soft, meadow-lined mountain nest. ”

“ The grass is not yet cut, and the showers have brought it up knee-deep. Its gentle whisper is plainly heard, the most delicate of all the voices in the world, and the meadow bends into billows, grey, silvery, and green, when a breeze of sufficient strength sweeps across it. ”

“ Five-and-twenty times she sees those willows grow green, and the meadow brighten up with flowers, and as often she sees their yellow leaves driven before the strong south wind, and the meadow grow dark and hoar before the breath of autumn. ”

“ The meadows shine new-washed; while here and there A dusky patch of snow in shelter’d paths Melts lonely. The awakened forest waves With boughs unplumed. The white investiture [20] Of the fair earth hath vanished, and the hills That in the evening sunset glowed with rose And ineffectual baptism of gold, Shine tawdry, crawled upon by the blind rain. Now Luggie thunders down the ringing vale, Tawnily brown, wide-leaving yellow sand Upon the meadow. The South-West, aroused, Blustering in moody kindness, clears the sky To its blue depths by a full-wingëd wind, Blowing the diapason of red March. ”

“ The meadow-larks always roost upon the ground. They creep well under the grass, or, if the wind is high and it snows, they squat close to the ground behind a tuft of grass or thick bush and sleep while the cold white flakes fall about them. ”

“ You may throw a stone across this meadow cove and in any direction save at its narrow entrance from the pond you will hit tall woods that in dense array lean lovingly over it and give it cool shadows except when the sun is high. Between the tall trees and the meadow grasses grows the clethra, its white spikes of perfume [67] seeming to make a lace collar all about the place. In the bottom of this meadow grows much thoroughwort, which is a plain, homely weed to the passing glance, not considered fit for a garden nor thought to beautify a roadside as do so many fairer pasture blooms. ”

“ Where a stream trails its sluggish length through the fields of midsummer, its way is oftentimes marked by the tall meadow rue, the feathery, graceful flower-clusters of which erect themselves serenely above the myriad blossoms which are making radiant the wet meadows at this season. For here, too, we may search for the purple flag and fringed orchis, the yellow meadow lily, the pink swamp milkweed, each charming in its way, but none with the cool chaste beauty of the meadow rue. ”

“ The meadowlark charms us no more with his long-drawn melody, but with one sharp, insistent note he struts in the meadow stubble or skulks among the tussocks of the pasture and challenges the youthful gunner. ”

“ The meadow, the rich green carpet of England and Ireland, with its delicate soft sward constantly springing up afresh—not the rough fleece of the Asiatic steppes, not the spiny and hostile vegetation of Africa, not the bristling savagery of American savannahs, where the smallest plant is woody and harshly arborescent—the European meadow, through its annual and ephemeral vegetation, its lowly little flowers, with mild and gentle odours, wears a youthful aspect ”

“ After having walked some time by the side of a rivulet, we came into a beautiful and spacious meadow. It was enamelled with a thousand sorts of flowers, whose various colours were, at a distance, blended together and formed shining carpets, such as art has never woven. The meadow was bounded by a piece of rock, like a wall; against which grew a tree, like an espalier. It did not rise above a man’s height, but spread itself to the right and left, the length of the rock, above three hundred paces. ”

“ Some time after noon—for the sun was high and the day was growing much warmer—I turned from the road, climbed an inviting little hill, and chose a spot in an old meadow in the shade of an apple tree and there I lay down on the grass, and looked up into the dusky shadows of the branches above me. I could feel the soft airs on my face; I could hear the buzzing of bees in the meadow flowers, and by turning my head just a little I could see the slow fleecy clouds, high up, drifting across the perfect blue of the sky. ”

“ By and by, being really cool in mind and body, we drew up abreast of a meadow which lay a little below the road, a place with a brook and over-spreading shade, and with some men and women harvesting not far away. ”

“ In the former the flowers are broken from their stems and stuck into the ground; they are beautiful to the eye and fragrant to the sense, but their colours soon fade, and their odour is transient as the smile of the planter;—while the meadow may be visited again and again with renewed delight; its beauty is innate in the soil, and its bloom is of the freshness of nature. ”

“ The espalier apple, like a screen, hides the meadow from me, so that the descending starlings appear to dive into a space behind it. Sloping downwards the meadow makes a valley; I cannot see it, but know that it is golden with buttercups, and that a brook runs in the groove of it.
Afar yonder I can see a summit beyond where the grass swells upwards to a higher level than this spot. There are bushes and elms whose height is decreased by distance on the summit, horses in the shadow of the trees, and a small flock of sheep crowded, as is their wont, in the hot and sunny gateway. ”

“ One of the sights upon which my eyes rest oftenest and with deepest content is a broad sweep of meadow slowly climbing the western sky until it pauses at the edge of a noble piece of woodland. It is a playground of wind and flowers and waving grasses. There are, indeed, days when it lies cold and sad under inhospitable skies, but for the most part the heavens are in league with cloud and sun to protect its charm against all comers. When the turf is fresh, all the promise of summer is in its tender green ”

“ There are broad and peaceful meadows, which, I think, are among the most satisfying objects in natural scenery. The heart reposes on them with a feeling that few things else can give, because almost all other objects are abrupt and clearly defined; but a meadow stretches out like a small infinity, yet with a secure homeliness which we do not find either in an expanse of water or of air. ”

“ In some places, the long meadow grass, growing close down to the edge, almost touched above, making a cool, green, cradle arch through which the pure waters flowed with soft whispers as though the baby stream were crooning to itself a lullaby. In other stretches, the green willows bent far over to dip their long, slim, fingers in the slow current that crept so lazily through the flickering light and shade that it seemed scarce to move at all. ”

“ The smoke from the farmhouse chimneys flowed southward along the top of the ash trees in a narrow, motionless rivulet in the calm air. Far off the hoofs of the returning hunt clattered decently, and combined with the dim memory of the wind in trees and sedge to give to the great meadow an emphasised tranquillity like that which fills an invalid’s room when others [101] are just audibly busy about and below. We walked more and more slowly up the meadow. The red house was clear and hard in the grey air, yet with a richness and implicated shadow as of things submerged. ”

“ The meadows were all in bloom. Weeds, growing in spite of wind and tide spread a golden carpet beside [227] the rose-colored meadow-grass. In the wet places were tangles of pale blue forget-me-nots; beyond them, tufts of the azure veronica, and over the stream hung the straw-colored lotus. Under the grain, yet green, corn-poppies were waving. With every breeze a scarlet wave arose, swelled, and vanished. ”

“ When we ripple the surface, the undulating light is reflected from the waves upon the bank and bushes and withered grass. Is not this already November, when the yellow and scarlet tints are gone from the forest? It is very pleasant to float along over the smooth meadow, where every weed and each stem of coarse grass that rises above the surface has another answering to it, and even more distinct in the water beneath, making a rhyme to it, so that the most irregular form appears regular. ”

“ By nine o'clock the meadow is quite dry, the forest appears in all the splendour of its glowing foliage. Some buds are expanding; others, which had effloresced more rapidly, have already disappeared. Another hour, and the clouds are higher: they form broad, dense masses, and, passing under the sun, whose fervid and brilliant rays now pervade the whole landscape, occasionally darken and cool the atmosphere. The plants shrink beneath the scorching rays, and resign themselves to the powerful influence of the ruler of the day. ”