MINSTREL WEATHER 



wild geraniums, willing to be background 

 for the May windflower or the buttercups 

 of June. Among the rocks, twinkling red 

 and yellow in the sandy, sunny places, 

 the columbine swings her cups of honey 

 impartially for glittering humming bird 

 and blunt-nosed, serious bee. Columbines 

 are delicious could anyone regard them 

 sensibly, and not as something animate 

 and almost winged. The claret-colored 

 milkweed (a natural paradox) holds flow- 

 ing nectar, too, but there is a paler milk- 

 weed, so softly tinted of pink, yellow, and 

 white as to be no color at all, whereto the 

 little yellow butterflies drift to sip at dusk. 

 The blossomed elder rests like white fog 

 in the hollows, scenting all the country 

 ways and promising elder-blossom wine, 

 the dryad's draught. In moist and dark 

 retreats under hemlocks and at the doors 

 of caves the ghost lamp is lighted. In 

 the brightest spot it can find the small 

 blackberry lily paints against the ledge 

 its speckled orange star. 



It is the tune of perfect ferns, uncurled . 

 quickly from the brown balls, and making 

 our Northern woods tropical with the 



sumptuous brake and temperate imita- 

 [34] 



