"SWEET SUMMER BUDS" 205 



some impediment, and the fine stems will turn and 

 bend in all sorts of graceful ways, but the bud is 

 always held erect when the time comes for it to 

 blossom. Ruskin quotes Lindley's definition of what 

 constitutes a poppy, which he thinks 'might stand/ 

 This is it : 'A Poppy is a flower which has either four 

 or six petals and two or more treasuries united in 

 one, containing a milky stupefying fluid in its stalks 

 and leaves and always throwing away its calix when 

 it blossoms.' 



"I muse over their seed-pods, those supremely 

 graceful urns that are wrought with such matchless 

 elegance of shape and think what strange power they 

 hold within. Sleep is there and Death, his brother, 

 imprisoned in those mystic sealed cups. There is a 

 hint of their mystery in their shape of somber 

 beauty, but never a suggestion in the fluttering blos- 

 som : it is the gayest flower that blows. In the more 

 delicate varieties the stalks are so slender, yet so 

 strong, like fine grass stems. When you examine 

 them, you wonder how they hold even the light 

 weight of the flower so firmly and proudly erect ; and 

 they are clothed with the finest of fine hairs up and 

 down the stalks and over the green calix. 



"It is plain to see, as one gazes over the poppy- 



