Beauty of July 七月之美

By Alice Meynell

One has the leisure of July for perceiving all the differences of the green of leaves. It is no longer a difference in degrees of maturity, for all the trees have darkened to their final tone, and stand in their differences of character and not of mere date. Almost all the green is grave, not sad and not dull. It has a darkened and a daily colour, in majestic but not obvious harmony with dark grey skies, and might look, to inconstant eyes, as prosaic after spring as eleven o'clock looks after the dawn.

Gravity is the word---not solemnity as towards evening, nor menace as at night. The daylight trees of July are signs of common beauty, common freshness, and a mystery familiar and abiding as night and day. In childhood we all have a more exalted sense of dawn and summer sunrise than we ever fully retain or quite recover; and also a far-higher sensibility for April and April evenings---a heartache for them, which in riper years is gradually and irretrievably consoled.

But, on the other hand, childhood has so quickly learned to find daily things tedious, and familiar things importunate, that it has no great delight in the mere middle of the day, and feels weariness of the summer that has ceased to change visibly. The poetry of mere day and of late summer becomes perceptible to mature eyes that have long ceased to be sated, have taken leave of weariness, and cannot now find anything in nature too familiar; eyes which have, indeed, lost sight of the further awe of midsummer daybreak, and no longer see so much of the past in April twilight as they saw when they had no past; but which look freshly at the dailiness of green summer, of early afternoon, of every sky of any form that comes to pass, and of the darkened elms.

七月间，人们有余暇观察树叶绿翠的千差万别。这不再是成熟上的差异，因为所有的树木，或转苍翠，或呈墨绿，色调均已固着定格，从而展现出来的，并非时节上的不同，而是各自品格上的差异。几乎各种绿色，品味凝重，既不流于悒郁，也不失之沉闷，它具有一种深沉、日常的色泽，与灰暗的苍穹浑然一体，构成庄重却非一眼可见的和谐，故而在游览扫掠的目光看来，可能会有阳春繁景过后的平淡之感。一如黎明之后十一点的光景。

凝重，乃是最贴切的字眼——不是时近黄昏的阴沉，亦非黑夜之中的森然。七月白昼的葱郁树木，体现出普通的美，常见的清新，是一种如同黑夜白昼般惯常而又永恒不变的不解之谜。童年时代，我们看到黎明和夏天日出盛景，会油然生出一股日后无法充分保留、也难以完全恢复的奋激狂喜;同时，对四月和四月的日暮黄昏，还产生一种陶然忘情的欣赏共鸣——一种为之怦然心动的神驰向往，进入壮年之后，又无可挽回地逐渐淡化平息。

只有阅历丰富的慧眼，才能感受到白昼本身的夏末时令固有的诗意——这双慧眼已久未获满足矣，同时也摆脱了厌倦感，此刻发现在自然界，即使最常见的景物也另有一番情趣;诚然，面对仲夏红日的喷薄欲出，已不再萌发敬畏之情;凝望四月的苍茫暮色，也不会比一无阅历的童年，引发更多的联想，然而，对司空见惯的日常景象——树木葱茏的盛夏，日过中天的午后，来而复去、变幻不定的每一片云天，还有幽暗的榆树——反倒会投以新的目光。