A shout from a rocketman far ahead came ringing down the open moor: “Skidda’s clear!”  Gladly we pressed on, and sure enough, black against the silver sky of evening, the great stack stood up that had to be torch to all our Jubilee bonfires hereabout.

A halt was called in shelter of “The Little Man,” rockets were adjusted to their sticks and divided between the two bonfire parties.  For the hill that was unveiling its double front from mid Atlantic clouds was to wear the double crown of flame tonight.  The programme was rehearsed.  At 9.55 a signal rocket was to be dispatched; at 10 a second.  These were to be answered from the neighbouring heights, then the bonfires were to be fired, and the National Anthem was to be sung.  At 10.30, in honour of Scotland, all the fires were to burn red light, a token of love from the Rose of England to the land of the Thistle.  Three rockets were to ascend in symbol of the United Kingdom.  The sister heights were to answer.  At eleven, green light was to be burned, for evergreen friendship and memory of the day, and also as a compliment to the Emerald Isle.  The National Anthem was again to be sung, and the rest of the rockets were to ascend.

The sight as we gained the top of Skiddaw “Great Man” was beyond description.  The mountains had all put on their solemnest apparel—the purple puce of twilight; the vast littoral plain lay like a deep Prussian-blue carpet, veined with silver where Derwent flowed, and silver frosted where light wisps of vapour hovered or rested by far watercourses.  While over the Solway lay a low, flocculent mass of cloud that looked for all the world like a huge sea of ice, with berg and floe.  Criffel’s dark top stood out above the vaporous veil, but for the rest the land beyond the Border was hidden from our sight.

At our feet, steely grey, lay Derwent Water, the islands appearing jet black upon its burnished surface; nearer, like a polished floor of ebony, in shadow of its woods, Bassenthwaite was seen.  Cold blew the wind, and folk who had come to see the sight busied themselves with shelters on the leeward side of the mountain, or sat huddled under the cairn hard by.

And the land darkened, but not for sleep.  On far off hills just such eager groups as were round us were gathering to their Jubilee fire stacks, or waiting with just the same impatience for the appointed hour.  It was clear that either the village clock had gone wrong, or patience was outworn at some of the bonfire stations in the plain, for we saw a rocket flash up here and there five minutes before time, and when Skiddaw sent its first signal up, to explode with a loud report in the quiet heaven, there were already five fires alight in the plain.  But it was a sight to remember to see how, within ten minutes of our first rocket, that vast blue carpet of the Cumbrian plain was jewelled with light, and some say 59, some say 70 fires were blazing in honour of our beloved Queen.  The night was ideal in atmospheric conditions for the display.  We could from our distance clearly see the blue flame that was burned on Scafell, and the coloured stars on Helvellyn as the rockets soared and burst.  Not the least beautiful effect of the bonfires in the distance to the north and west was that they gleamed here and there through the rifts of the fleecy sea of low-lying cloud, and now seemed to pale, now to flash into fulness, now to be on earth, now to be in mid-heaven. 

Meanwhile our bonfires, which had been lit at the top of the Man, burned torch-like-downwards with a grand head of flame, and we were proving that there is nothing like peat and paraffin for a mountain Jubilee bonfire, if only the cross flues and the central chimney are properly constructed for draught, whilst we were silencing false prophets of disaster, who assured us “that when you light from the bottom bonfires will not burn.”

But those who had climbed up Skiddaw were not only able to have their hearts enlarged by joining in fancy so many goodly companies of men in far-off places about their loyal beacons; they were enable to have a bird’s-eye view of all the loyal rejoicings of the little town of Keswick at their feet.  The streets sparkled with light, flotillas of fairy fire were seen to put off from the shore and spangle the dark bosom of Derwentwater.  Rockets danced up and broke in golden rain above the island trees, and overhead anon red lights gleamed and died away, while fireflies flashed across the waterflood and wove intricate patterns of sparkle and beauty upon the dim grey silver of the happy lake.

But one by one the stars in the plain and on the mountain tops faded.  Still the Skiddaw fires bravely burned—the torches of their great love seemed inextinguishable; but our eyes were far away.  The beacon fire of the new dawn was kindling in secret beneath the lilac bank of north-east cloud.  The purple bastion was sudden fringed with fire.  The first faint streamers of the morn shot trembling towards the zenith.  The Pole Star paled.  The Plough and Cassopeia vanished from mid-heaven, and over the grey-blue plain and that wondrous pack of Arctic sea—the fairy floes of softest filmy cloud—the sun built up the master beams of his place chamber, and came forth as a bridegroom to woo and win his bride.

(London Daily News, 25 June 1897, p. 2; also published in A Rambler’s Notebook at the English Lakes, pp. 252-258)

Hits: 6131

Here all day long I sit and gaze
Where lupins grow and poppies blaze,
The Rhododendrons wall me round
With colour; rooks make lazy sound,
Scented with May the soft airs pass
To stir the shadows on the grass,
While from her golden yew-tree’s dome
A thrush sings loud of love and home.
How sweet from this embowered lawn
To see the distant tide withdrawn,
To watch beyond the meadow lands
Shimmer of sun on lilac sands;
But sweeter is the scene to me
When back at sunset comes the sea,
When dark in western light the Scar
Stands up to wait the first white star,
And all dawn’s mystery is made
To mix with evening long-delayed.
For then while cuckoo still awake
Calls, I can hear the incessant crake
—A conjuror, a ventriloquist—
Answer his own voice in the mist,
And watch the ranks of hedge and tree
Go marching to the twilight sea
Beneath their banners plumy-bright
Wove from the vapoury dews of night,
While Whitbarrow in purple stands
Above the Kent’s grey level lands,
And still out north the Langdales lie
Clear against lucent silver sky,
For here in June when stars are seen
Not ever wholly fades the green,
Still do the lupins whitely show
And still the scarlet poppies glow,
Till Eversley’s high lifted lawn
Is glad again with song and dawn.

(Poems at Home and Abroad, pp. 46-47)

Hits: 5860

From the Hoheweg, Interlaken

In that old cloistral mead of grass and flower
        Beneath the mossy walnuts’ gathering shade,
        We watched the snow-white mighty Mountain-
            Maid
Go through her changes, felt her glorious dower
Of calm and purity, and knew the power
        Wherewith she comes all mortal hearts to aid,
        When sure of life hereafter, unafraid,
She waits in patience her appointed hour.

The sunlight faded from her virgin crown,
    And there she sat majestic, spectral, pale,
        Till all her long day’s unremembered grace
        Reborn with roseate splendours flushed her face,
    And o’er the undying Lady of the vale
The deathless stars with welcoming look down.

(Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy, p. 87)

Hits: 5879

Leafy June—that is the title for June in the Midlands, but Bilberry June and Bracken June is the name by which we may call it at the Lakes.  It is true that there is one tree that comes pre-eminently into beauty of leafage in this month, that is the stubborn ash.  She flutters into feathers of fine golden green in the first week, and is full-fledged by middle June, but as for the other trees, larch and birch and beech and sycamore, they have not only put on their full-leaved finery before, but they have become monotonous in hue, and though it is true they make up for this want of interest to the eye by becoming vocal and filled with the sound of wings of flies and gnats, filled with “the murmur of innumerable bees,” except for the blossom of the lime the time of tree-flowering seems past. (p. 74)

But there is one flowering shrub that brightens our homes, and fills the more favoured garden slopes with beauty in June.  This is the rhododendron, and while the laburnum pales and the lilac fades, the rhododendron with its miniature mountains of colour maintains its gift of joy in exuberant blossom till Junetide hears the call of fair July.  As to the fields, they shine now purple with cranesbill, now silver white with oxeye daisies or pink with sorrel flowers.  The flower of June par excellence in our Lake Country meadows is this daisy….  Not beloved of cattle-rearer nor hay provider, one cannot help being thankful to these sturdy flowers for the glory as of moonlight that they lend our scarcely darkened meadows in the long twilights of June.  All through the day they follow the sun, and when at last he sinks from sight beyond the gateway in the hills to the west, they stand to see the last sight of him and remain with their faces to the north, as if they felt sure that he would come again whence he had gone. (pp. 74-75)….

If our eyes during the latter part of this month of June are held captive to the valley flowers, at least in the earlier weeks they seek the heights.  For we are suddenly aware that a vivid emerald dust has powdered the fell tops.  The shales shine darkest purple by reason of the contrast, and the stranger passing through the country looks up and cries, how vivid the mountain fern is on the height.  But the stranger is wrong.  The “sweet mountain-fern,” it is true, is tufting the lower shales with green or green and grey, and the bracken, where it has shot up to its three feet height of stalk, has filled the southern sunny places of its beloved haunts with a miniature forest of amber tree stem and brown-hued branch; but that green vivid thing upon the heights is the changeling bilberry.  I say changeling because last month it covered all the hill tops with coralline, and the young rosy leaf has in this month of June let all its coral pass into its thousand vitreous flower-cups, and bidden its leafage shine with such vivid emerald as makes us perforce lift up our eyes to the hills and feel that summer is sure. (pp. 76-77)….

One is sometimes asked what is the individuality of June as regards the colour of the hills.  There is in June an absence of that blend of peacock green and blue which was noticeable in May.  But a peculiar mixture of slate and hyacinth blue is perceivable in the distances.  Hot June days, even if there is no wind from east and south, breed haze, and when the smoke-makers of Lancashire and Yorkshire add their veils of dimness also, a great deal of colour goes out of the fellsides during the day, and one must rise betimes if one would see the hills in their rare beauty.  Then marvellous purple shadows are seen to lie upon softest greens right up to the sky line, and whilst the valleys swim in silver mist, the upper fells are clear, as if drawn in a silhouette upon a canvas of opal heaven. (p. 79)

We have our thunderstorms in June, and often these clouds lend enchantment, but taking the months through, there is not such change of expression upon our mountain slopes as one knew in April and in May.  These thunderstorms are curiously local.  I have known it rain a deluge in Keswick, while not a drop has fallen upon the Vicarage hill.  I have seen a thunderstorm break almost with force of a waterspout at Applethwaite in Underskiddaw, and not felt a sprinkle of rain in the Vicarage garden.  But one phenomenon in summer heat is noticeable.  It is the way in which a storm will brew and brew in the distance.  Borrowdale will go black, Derwent into inky blue, and in an hour’s time the whole storm cloud be seen to have been lifted right up into the higher heavens and the sun shine out in a clear sky, as if no trouble of rain or wind had ever threatened us at all. This dissipation of storm that seemed imminent is very noticeable in June. (pp. 79-80)

But to return for a moment to the general colouring of June.  It may be said that, putting aside the vivid emerald of the bilberry on the heights, and the lesser vivid green of the bracken at the base of the hills, the general hue of our fellside covering is a green with a slight wash of coral-pink in it.  A peculiar lilac grey is seen to be an undertone of the new green that clothes the lower slopes, the grey green of a new mown field of hay that has felt one day of summer sun.  The valley meadows as yet uncut and filled with their flowering grasses, seen from the height, are of the same lilac grey.  It will not be till July has come in that the vales will change this lilac grey-green for the vivid aftermath, and the painter June seems to use the uncut valley meadow colouring for the painting of the mountain slopes, with the result that marvellous harmony of tone prevails. (pp. 80-81)

The joy of June is still the thrush’s song, but he who would hear the earliest pipe of half-awakened birds must be up betimes.  By three o’clock in the morning the Junetide chorus of the thrush and blackbird and chaffinch is heard, and not till eight o’clock in the eventide will vespers begin.  From eight to half-past nine or ten in our long-lighted evenings will the birds in woody places make sweet music, and when the last thrush has ceased her praise about the garden walks, the swift’s shrill scream will be heard in heaven, the corncrake in the near meadow will begin his tale, and the cry of the gulls who at this time haunt the valley and quarter the fields in quest of the night moths, or the chirr of the night jar will break the twilit silence.  There is nothing quite so satisfying to the weary man as to sit then on his garden seat or at his cottage porch and watch the golden glory in the mountain gap to the north fade from saffron into lemon yellow, from lemon yellow into molten silver, while the bees still murmur in the sycamore, and the ash-tree stands in feather of darkest purple against the lucent sky.  A dog barks at a distant farm; the mowers with the first moonlight on their scythes, pass up the lane; the scent of the hay and of the elder blossom mingle in the quiet balmy air; the beck begins to be musical and murmurous from the meadow near, and the first star shines above the western hill.  If only the corncrake would cease and the swift be silent, now would peace absolute be ours. (pp. 81-82)

(Months at the Lakes, pp. 74-82)

Hits: 5685