A SONG OF SUMMER 69 



peppermint, steeped into the tea that 

 Lydia Languish might have sipped for 

 the vapours, is now distilled and min- 

 isters to the nerves under the name 

 of menthol, and the leaves of win- 

 ter-green, that gran'ther chewed for 

 his rheumatics, still pursue the same 

 complaint, wearing its Latin name, 

 Gaultheria. But do not let us talk of 

 ills and medicines in mellowing sum- 

 mer-time, when the sunshine draws 

 stagnation from the blood and clears 

 its channels. To-day let the world 

 slip, and let us live in a summer 

 reverie. 



The locust drowses in the open 

 places and the shade stops as we pass 

 a strip of onion fields. The deep, flat 

 soil is cleared of every tree or bush 

 that might give shade or take the sub- 

 stance from it. Outside the fence, 

 some great elms lie rotting, elms that 



