THE BLUE-STEMMED GOLDEN-ROD. 153 



dated. The full maturing of Nature's yearly cycle of life, the 

 shortening days, the yellow light, the blue haze in all the air, 

 as though the sky had fallen down close upon the ground, the 

 shorn meadows, the golden harvests of grain, the ripened fruit 

 loading the bending trees, or heaped in dazzling pyramids of color 

 upon the green turf beneath, the leaves of the forest falling one 

 by one silently through the still sunny air till they cover the 

 earth as with sunset clouds, --how are such scenes as these 

 conjured up by the waving of this golden-tipped wand ! 



The Golden-Rod comes at the end of Nature's floral season. 

 So should it fitly come at the end of our floral book, and I 

 know of none who has more lovingly sung its praises than the 

 author whose lines shall make my good-by to my readers and 

 the Golden-Rod together. 



* 



This flower is fuller of the sun 



Than any our pale North can show; 

 It has the heart of August won, 



And scatters wide the warmth and glow 

 Kindled at summer's mid-noon blaze, 



Where gentians of September bloom 

 Along October's leaf-strewn ways, 



And through November's paths of gloom. 



Herald of Autumn's reign, it sets 



Gay bonfires blazing round the fields: 

 Rich Autumn pays in gold his debts 



For tenancy that summer yields. 

 Beauty's slow harvest now comes in; 



New promise with fulfilment won: 

 The heart's vast hope does but begin, 



Filled with ripe seeds of sweetness gone. 



