The Heart of England/Chapter 30
PART III
THE UPLAND
CHAPTER XXX
CHERRY BLOSSOM
In front, a tall beechen hill closes up the gulf that runs out of the valley into the heart of the chalk down. The hill fills nearly half the sky, and just above it stands the white full moon, as one who looks over his lands. It warms the low, pale, curdled sky, but does not disturb the darkness of the beeches. All its light seems to fall and settle, as if it would dwell there for ever in the cherry trees on either hand. All are blossoming, and in their branches the nightingales sing out of the blossom, dispersing what ruins remain of the world of yesterday, and building rapidly those tall watch towers that last until dawn, which men may climb and from their summits see what may make them out of love with the earth.
The past day is long past, the day of fighting, digging, buying, selling, writing; and if there are still men on the earth they are all equal in the trances of passion or sleep; the day to come is not to be thought of. The moon reigns; you rule. The centuries are gathered up in your hand. You and the moonlight and the nightingale and the cherry blossom have your own way with them all night long. It is true then that Virgil, Catullus, Crashaw, Burton, Shelley… live still, and Horace, Racine, Bishop Beveridge… never lived. You exult because you are alive and your spirit possesses this broad, domed earth. Poor thing as you are, you have somehow gained a power of expression like the nightingale's, a pure translucency like the petals of the flowers; and as never before to man or woman you open your eyes widely and frankly, even the limbs move with the carelessness of the animals, the features lose the rigidity that comes of compromise and suppression.
Walking slowly thus, with a bowed head, you find an image of yourself and the universe in a shallow pool among the trees. The pool is your own mind. The flowers at its edge—hyacinth, primrose, marsh-marigold, and all the trees and their foliage—are the intimate and permanent companions of your life, and they are clearly mirrored in the water. An oak draws a long, snaky shadow from side to side, with the head and neck of a sitting dove among the leaves. And there, too, are the stars and the moon, brought down into that homely company of trees and flowers by the shining water, and preserved there in strangely woven patterns; just as in your mind you mingle visions of the world, the past, the imaginary, with your own domestic surroundings and acts, and a changing mood, like a pufF of wind across the pool, erases them. How sovereign and proud your own form plunged among these mirrored stars and leaves! On such a night an uncourageous lover, who sat at the edge with his mistress, was lured to a strange boldness by long gazing at the two blissful figures down there among the clouds. "See how fair they are," he said, "and how happy and close. Let us make them kiss." And the shadows kissed in the bosom of the pool.