Читать книгу Pearls and Pebbles; or, Notes of an Old Naturalist - Catharine Parr Traill - Страница 9
ОглавлениеPLEASANT DAYS OF MY CHILDHOOD.
"How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew."
There is something almost magical in the word May. It brings back to memory pictures of all things sweet and fair that charmed us in our youthful days; it recalls the joys of infancy when we filled our laps with flowers.
We hear again the song of blackbird, linnet and robin, and the far-away call of that mystery of childhood, the cuckoo. We hear the murmur of the summer wind among the rustling green flags beside the river; we scent the flowers of the hawthorn, and the violets hidden among the grass, and fill our hands with bluebells and cowslips.
But we have in Canada few such May days as Shakespeare, Milton and Herrick describe; here too often it may be said that "Winter, lingering, chills the lap of May."
The inborn sense of the beautiful springs to life in the soul of the babe when it stretches forth an eager hand to grasp the flowers in its nurse's bosom. It is the birth of a new and pleasurable emotion. I love to see an innocent child playing with the fresh fair flowers, meet emblems at once of its own beauty and frailty; for does not the Word say, "He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down."
It was on the banks of that most beautiful of Suffolk rivers, the Waveney, that the first happy years of my childhood were passed. My father's family came from the north of England, where among the mountain dales and fells still lingered many primitive customs and ancient rural sports. Of these the keeping of May Day—no doubt a relic of some ancient pagan rite, but, the origin forgotten, now perfectly harmless—was one of the most cherished. My father still clung to the old observance of this rural holiday of his ancestors, and May Day was looked forward to with eager anticipation by my sisters and myself.
The flowers—the sweet May blossoms of the hawthorn hedge and the early spring flowers—must be gathered while the dew was still upon them, or the rites lost half their virtue.
We were always up before the sun, and so eagerly did we watch for the day that even our dreams were haunted by the anticipated pleasure, for I remember my mother telling of being startled in the night by seeing the door softly open and a small white-robed figure glide up to the bedside. It was Sara, her eyes wide open, fixed and staring, but the child was fast asleep. Two tiny hands held up the full folds of her night-dress as she said, "Flowers, more flowers, Lila." Even in her sleep she had gathered dream-flowers for the May Day garlands.
I was the youngest but one, and being an especial pet in the household, on my happy head was conferred the May crown, and I was duly greeted as Queen of May.
Surely no queen could have been more joyous or proud of her honors; my crown a circlet of flowers, my sceptre a flower-wreathed wand of hazel, and my throne a mound of daisy-sprinkled turf in the meadow by the clear flowing river; my loyal subjects, the dearest and most loving of sisters.
The crown so coveted was worn till night, and then cast aside to wither in the dust. Sic transit gloria mundi!
Within a short distance of the old house there was a narrow bridle-path which we called the "little lane." It was shut in from the main road, with which it ran parallel, by a quick-set hedge; on the other side were high sloping banks, the unfenced boundary of upland pastures.
On the grassy slopes grew tall oak trees and a tangled jungle of wild bushes, among which woodbine and sweet briar entwined, forming luxuriant bowers, beneath which all sorts of flowers grew in rich profusion.
On the other, or lower side of the lane, a little tinkling rill, that a child might step across, ran down, its water clear and bright. From this slender streamlet we children drank the most delicious draughts from Nature's own chalice, the hollow of our hands, or sipped its pure waters, like the fairies we read of, from the acorn cups that strewed the grass.
The banks of the stream were lined with sweet purple violets, primroses, and the little sun-bright celandine; and later on there was good store of wild strawberries, which we gathered and strung upon a stalk of grass to carry home to our mother as a peace-offering for torn frocks and soiled pinafores, or leave out-stayed.
This charming spot was our Eden. In it we laid out beds and planted a garden for ourselves. Like Canadian squatters, we took to ourselves right of soil, and made a free settlement sans cérémonie. The garden was laid out right daintily. The beds were planted with double daisies and many garden bulbs and flowers discarded or begged from the gardener's parterres. A hollow in the bank was fashioned into a grotto, which we lined with moss and decorated with dry striped snail-shells and bright stones.
Our garden tools were of the rudest—our trowel a rusty iron ladle, our spade a broken-bladed carving-knife, and we daily watered the flowers from a battered tin tea-pot and a leaky japanned mug. But in spite of these unhandy implements, the garden throve and blossomed in the wilderness.
There, sheltered from sun and shower among the bowery honeysuckles, we reclined on the green turf, happy as children could be, and listened to the oft-repeated stories and old ballads that were recited by our two elder sisters. How we delighted in those tales and quaint old rhymes, and how little we dreamed that the time would come when the sisters who regaled us with them would make a name for themselves in the world of letters.[2]
Many years afterwards I visited the "little lane." A few crocuses and snowdrops, choked by long grass and weeds, were all that were left to mark the spot where "once a garden smiled."
I stooped and as of old drank of the bright little stream, and gathered a nosegay of the sweet violets to carry away as a souvenir of my childhood. Often in after years have the memories of those May days among the cowslips and daisied meads of the Waveney come back to my wearied soul to cheer and soothe the exile in her far distant forest home.
LAMENT FOR THE MAY QUEEN.
Weep, weep, thou virgin Queen of May,
Thy ancient reign is o'er;
Thy vot'ries now are lowly laid,
And thou art Queen no more.
Fling down, fling down, thy flow'ry crown,
Thy sceptre cast away,
For ne'er again on vale or plain
They'll hail thee Queen of May.
No maiden now with glowing brow
Shall rise with early dawn,
To bind her hair with chaplets fair
Torn from the blossomed thorn.
No lark shall spring on dewy wing
Thy matin hymn to pour,
No cuckoo's voice shall shout "Rejoice!"
For thou art Queen no more.
Beneath thy flower-encircled wand
No peasant trains advance;
No more they lead with sportive tread
The merry, merry dance.
The violet blooms with modest grace
Beneath its crest of leaves;
The primrose shows her gentle face,
Her wreaths the woodbine weaves.
The cowslip bends her golden head,
And daisies deck the lea;
But ah! no more in grove or bower
The Queen of May we'll see.
