42 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



Palest and most ghostlike of all flowers that one 

 finds as he climbs from the meadow to the woods 

 beyond is that of the Monotropa uniflora, or 

 Indian pipe. Round about it its cousins, the pyrola 

 and the pipsissewa, grow green leaves and show 

 waxy white or flesh-pink blossoms. The only color 

 in the Indian pipe is that of the yellow stamens, 

 which shrink in a close circle within the wax-white 

 bloom that stands on a scaly, wax-white stem. A 

 very ghost of a flower is this, nor may we account 

 for its ghostliness. When, long ago, Miantowonah 

 fled to drown her grief in the lake and later rise 

 from it the spirit of a flower which is the regal 

 white pond lily that scatters incense all along 

 the borders of Ponkapoag Pond, her Indian lover 

 followed, too late to prevent the sacrifice. Did he 

 drop his peace pipe in the race through the wood, 

 and did this ghost flower spring from the spot, a 

 faintly fragrant, almost transparent ghostly re- 

 minder of it ? If so, it has passed into no legend. 



Coming back through the meadow, with its 

 butterfly sprites of fancy dancing among the 

 flowers, I find one which always seems a reminder 

 of the poet's work at its daintiest and best. That 



