MINSTREL WEATHER 



neath curved canopies, while the lucent 

 pallors of the white water lily one by one 

 are dimmed. Moving serenely toward its 

 climax, the season drinks the sun and takes 

 the color of its slanting light. 



The flame lily lifts a burnt-orange cup* 

 straight toward the sky. The yellow 

 meadow lily bends down over the damp 

 mold it seeks. But both love deep woods, 

 and, blazing suddenly above a fern bed, 

 the rich flowers startle, like a butterfly 

 of the Andes adrift in Canadian forests. 

 They are princesses of the tropics, in- 

 congruously banished to Northern swamps, 

 but scornfully at ease. The false Sol- 

 omon's-seal in proud assemblies wears 

 with an oddly holiday air its freckled 

 coral beads, always a lure to the errant 

 cow; and jack-in-the-pulpit, having been 

 invested with some churchly rank which 

 demands the red robe, is ready to cast 

 off his cassock of lustrous striped green 

 for one of scarlet. The pendent-flowered 

 jewelweed, plant with temperament and 

 therefore called, too, touch-me-not, droops 

 its dew-lined leaves along the traveled 

 lanes, for it is making ready small surprise 

 packages of seed that snap ferociously open 



[38] 



