Only last year I looked on a stretch of interminable brown
sand, hard and smooth and broad, with the ocean perpetually rolling in
upon it with slow-measured sweep, with rustle and hiss and foam, and
many a thump as of low bass drums. There before me was Whitman's very
vision, and in the keen mystic joy of the moment I could not help
thinking sadly of one dreadful alley where lately I had been. It seemed
so sad that the folk of the alley could not share my pleasure; and the
murmur of vain regrets came to the soul even amid the triumphant clamour
of the free wind. Poor cramped townsfolk, hard is your fate! It is hard;
but I can see no good in repining over their fortune if we aid them as
far as we can; rather let us speak of the bright time that comes for the
toilers who are able to escape from the burning streets.
The mathematicians and such-like dry personages confine midsummer to one
day in June; but we who are untrammelled by science know a great deal
better. For us midsummer lasts till August is half over, and we utterly
refuse to trouble ourselves about equinoxes and solstices and
trivialities of that kind. For us it is midsummer while the sun is warm,
while the trees hold their green, while the dancing waves fling their
blossoms of foam under the darting rays that dazzle us, while the sacred
night is soft and warm and the cool airs are wafted like sounds of
blessings spoken in the scented darkness.
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