midsummer

midsummer, originally uploaded by John Barleycorn.

This is the midsummer sky above Holmen. Midsummer is my favourite holiday. Spent some of it in the grass at Holmen reading chapter seven - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn - in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. It's one of the most beautiful texts I've ever read.

"In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir's shimmering armspread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close with willow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it hid whatever it might hold behind the veil, keeping it till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were called and chosen."

The Piper referred to in this chapter is the Great God Pan.