A LAND-LOVKR AND HIS LAND 



clove pinks and gillyflowers, nod you 

 a stately welcome, or ruffle contempt 

 one of another. But you forget their 

 high ways, their formal prettiness, 

 when you fall under spell of the woods. 

 They run to above a hundred acres, 

 are full of rocky ledges, long gray 

 mossy boulders, and the greenest shade. 

 Brake-ferns stand waist-high ; maiden- 

 hair in thick tufts rises to the knee; 

 sword -fern, lace -fern, staghorn-fern, 

 and many others, spring rank on rank 

 from black earth, whose richness is 

 further attested by the tall white spires 

 of cohosh, known otherwise as rattle- 

 snake-weed. Two brooks thread the 

 wood, murmuring or tinkling over big 

 stones. Along them, in spring, there 

 are sheaves of purple iris ; in the height 

 of high summer, other sheaves of 

 cardinal - flower, scarlet as sin, and 



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