A SONG OF SUMMER 65 



meshed with dust-hung cobwebs, crowds 

 the moth-mullein, and wild carrots 

 spread their filmy umbels beside brown 

 stalks of last year's dock. Creeping, 

 with clean, green leaves, the yellow 

 hop-clover spreads and mats with the 

 sweet white clover escaped from the 

 fields. The yellow toad-flax, or butter 

 and eggs, a cousin of the garden snap- 

 dragon, with its densely packed ra- 

 cemes, steps in and out, climbing on 

 stone heaps, tangled thick with trailing 

 blackberry vines, underneath whose 

 leaves lies the ripe, sweet, astringent 

 fruit. Tasting it, we suck the purple 

 drops of summer wine, and drinking, 

 grow in tune with Nature's melodies. 



A silvery warble and the ripening 

 thistles show a hovering flock of yellow 

 birds, braving the prickly stalks for the 

 sake of the winged seeds and down, to 

 line their nests. For this gay bird 



