Green rushes standing above a ditch tell the season as plainly as a sundial tells the hour, and from that opening the essay moves through grasses, hedges, turtle-doves under a thunderstorm and the abundance of the southern English countryside. Jefferies writes as a man savouring every detail of sap, scent and light while reflecting on how little human beings understand of the life around them.
Among the finest short pieces of English nature writing, composed while Jefferies was already gravely ill. Download the free EPUB.