The royal months are ours, and we love the
reign of the rose.
When the burnished tints of bronze shine on the brackens, and the
night-wind blows with a chilly moan from the fields of darkness, we
shall have precious days to remember, and, ah, when the nights are long,
and the churlish Winter lays his fell finger on stream and grass and
tree, we shall be haunted by jolly memories! Will the memories be wholly
pleasant? Perchance, when the curtains are drawn and the lamp burns
softly, we may read of bright and beautiful things. Out of doors the war
of the winter fills the roaring darkness. It may be that
Hoarsely across the iron ground
The icy wind goes roaring past,
The powdery wreaths go whirling round
Dancing a measure to the blast.
The hideous sky droops darkly down
In brooding swathes of misty gloom,
And seems to wrap the fated town
In shadows of remorseless doom.
Then some of us may find a magic phrase of Keats's, or Thomas Hardy's,
or Black's, or Dickens's, that recalls the lovely past from the dead.
Many times I have had that experience. Once, after spending the long and
glorious summer amid the weird subdued beauty of a wide heath, I
returned to the great city.
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