Page:Bruton parish church restored and its historic environments (1907 V2).djvu/79

 The Churchyard

God, through nature, has done much to make beautiful the spacious grounds where the old Church stands. Each season gives to the place a special charm, and a varied loveliness. The spring calls forth the wild buttercups which spread themselves over the entire ground like a rich cloth of gold The summer breathes upon the roses which blossom forth and bloom here among the tombs and above the green graves of the dead of other days. The ancient trees, full-leaved, cast upon the dark walls of the old Church deep shadows which lengthen and deepen with the dying day. Then the touch of autumn tells that another year is beginning to die; the berries redden on the English hawthorn tree which stands near by the ancient tower door; the vine, clinging to the north wall of the Church, turns crimson; and the leaves flush with varied color, then fall and die. In the bleak winter, the wind, as if at requiem, sighs through the bare trees, and moans about the walls and tower of the old Church, and only the ivy which mantles the eastern end of the building, and clings to the old trees in the churchyard, remains green. But the scene is one of matchless beauty, when, from heaven, the mantle of spotless white softly falls o'er church and tombs and bending trees. And then again, there come the glad days that speak of life, and suggest thoughts of immortality. Dormant vital forces stir and breathe and move. The air is filled with the music of birds singing as they nest in the trees in the Temple court, and is laden with the perfume of the hawthorn bloom, and violets come forth and weave a border of purple and green about the bases of the tombs.

The churchyard is associated with many of the stirring scenes of the ancient past. Here Nathaniel Bacon, in 1676, assembled his followers for conference, and beneath the shade