A Memory of Summer In the pine woods, or floating under overhanging branches on the silent and almost motionless river, I have had visions of my study fire during the summer months, and, now that I find myself once more within the cheerful circle of its glow, the time that has passed since it was lighted for the last time in the spring seems like a long, delightful dream.

I recall those charming days, some of them full of silence and repose from dawn to sunset, some of them ripe with effort and adventure, with a keen delight in the feeling of possession which comes with them; they were brief, they have gone, but they are mine forever.
The beauty and freshness that touched them morning after morning as the dew touches the flower are henceforth a part of my life; they have entered into my soul as their light and heat entered into the ripening fruits and grains.

I have come back to my friendly fire richer and wiser for my absence from its cheer and warmth; my life has been renewed at those ancient sources whence all our knowledge has come; I have felt again the solitude and sanctity of those venerable shades where the voices of the oracles were once heard, and fleeting glimpses of shy divinities made a momentary splendour in the dusky depths.
Wordsworth's sonnets are always within reach of those who never get beyond the compelling voice of nature, and who are continually returning to her with a sense of loss and decline after every wandering.

As I take up the little, well-worn book, it opens of itself at a familiar page, and I read once more that sonnet which comes to one at times with an unspeakable pathos in its lines--a sense of permanent alienation and loss: The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like springing flowers-- For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
It moves us not.

Great God! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn, So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Almost unconsciously I repeat these lines aloud, and straightway the fire, breaking into flame where it has been only glowing before, answers them with a sudden outburst of heat and light that make a brief summer in my study.