Psalm 147:8 Who covers the heaven with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the mountains. Consider what we owe merely to the meadow grass, to the covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those soft and countless and peaceful spears! The field! Follow but just for a little time the thoughts of all that we ought to recognize in those words. All spring and summer is in them, the walks by the silent, scented paths, the rests in noonday heat, the joy of herds and flocks, the power of all shepherd life and meditation, the sunlight upon the world, falling in emerald streaks and falling in soft blue shadows where else it would have struck upon the dark mould or scorching dust, pastures beside the pacing brooks, soft banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea, crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of varied sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and softening in their fall the sound of loving voices, all these are summed up in those simple words — the fields — and these are not all. We may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift in our own land; though still as we think of it longer, the infinite of that meadow sweetness — Shakespeare's peculiar joy — would open on us more and more, yet we have it but in part. Go out in the spring-time among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains, there, mingled with their taller gentians and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free; and as you follow the winding mountain paths beneath arching boughs all veiled and dim with blossom — paths that for ever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds, sweeping clown in scented undulation steep to the blue water, studded here and there with new-mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness; look up towards the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines, and we may, perhaps, at last know the meaning of those quiet words, "He maketh the grass to grow upon the mountains." (John Ruskin.) Parallel Verses KJV: Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains. |
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