July
July
Now comes July, and with his fervid noonUnsinews labor. The swinkt mower sleeps;The maid walks feebly; the warm swainPitches his load reluctant: the faint steer,Lashing his sides, draws sulkily alongThe slow encumbered wain in mid-day heat.
Now comes July, and with his fervid noonUnsinews labor. The swinkt mower sleeps;The maid walks feebly; the warm swainPitches his load reluctant: the faint steer,Lashing his sides, draws sulkily alongThe slow encumbered wain in mid-day heat.
Now comes July, and with his fervid noon
Unsinews labor. The swinkt mower sleeps;
The maid walks feebly; the warm swain
Pitches his load reluctant: the faint steer,
Lashing his sides, draws sulkily along
The slow encumbered wain in mid-day heat.
Suchis the picture of this month, drawn by an old English poet. With us the heat is still greater than in England; yet the farmers keep busily at work in the fields; and, to say truth, it is about as comfortable to be at work as to be idle. You see in the picture that our fat friend, who is only looking on, wipes his face and seems as hot as those who are in the field at work, hoeing the corn.
Leigh Hunt, an elegant English writer, says: “The heat is greatest during this month, on account of its duration. There is a sense of heat and quiet all over nature. The birds are silent. The little brooks are dried up. The earth is parched. The shadows of the trees are particularly grateful, heavy and still. The oaks, which are freshest because latest in leaf, form noble, clumpy canopies, looking, as you lie under them, of a strong, emulous green, against the blue sky. The traveller delights to cut across the country, through the fields and the leafy lanes, where, nevertheless, the flints sparkle with heat. The cattle get into the shade or stand in the water. The active and air-cutting swallows now beginning to assemble for migration, seek their prey among the shady places, where the insects, though of differently compounded natures, ‘fleshless and bloodless,’ seem to get for coolness, as they do at other times for warmth. The sound of insects is likewise the only audible sound now, increasing rather than lessening the sense of quiet, by its gentle contrast. The bee now and then sweeps across the ear with his gravest tone.”
On the 24th of this month commence the dog-days, which are a number of days preceding and following the rise of Sirius, or the dog-star, in the morning. There were formerly many superstitions concerning the dog-star. Some old authors say, that “On the first day that this star rises in the morning, the sea boils, wine turns sour, dogs begin to grow mad, all animals feel languid, and the diseases itoccasions in men are fevers, frenzies and hysterics.” The Romans used to sacrifice a brown dog, every year, to the dog-star, on his first rising, to appease his rage. The heat of the weather during the dog-days is very great; the sun darts his rays almost perpendicularly upon the earth, and some diseases are consequently at that time more to be dreaded. But the exaggerated effects of the rising of Sirius are quite groundless.