summer ; so, too, does the dew proclaim it. 

 Touch the branch above, you shall be 

 drenched in a fairy bath ; step but once 

 from the path, your feet are sodden. And 

 was ever aught fairer than this feathery oat- 

 field, bediamonded at every point? On 

 blade and stalk, on each drooping grain, 

 the bright beads stand arow. The sun 

 sends down a shaft, and lo ! a world of 

 rainbows flashes back to you from the toss- 

 ing blue-green mass. May has dew, indeed, 

 grateful alike to soul and sense, but not to 

 be named beside this lucent love-gift of still 

 midsummer nights. Midsummer fairies have 

 blessed it, too. Go through it as you will- 

 lave you in thick leafage or tramp sturdily 

 over streaming grass -land you shall be 

 none the worse of it. Not even if you dare 

 invade the corn-field, with its rank upon rank 

 of dark -green knights true warriors all, 

 that shall put to flight the grim ogre Fam- 

 ine. Plumed knights are they, with every 

 plume true gold. See the yellow dust that 

 powders all the field. Mark, too, the fine, 

 faint incense-cloud that the dawn wind has 

 scarce strength to blow away from the field 

 of tossing spears. The breath of it in the 

 nostrils is half barbaric neither sweet nor 

 bitter, yet full of subtle suggestion. Again 



