26 THE INCOMING OF SUMMER 

 calling; I must return to the sunlit waters 

 and the bended sedges. 



All the loveliness of fled summers returns 

 to the mind. The spread disk of the 

 dandelion, so richly hued, is more beautiful 

 now, bearing in its colour so many hopes 

 of the past. A common flower, a despised 

 weed, yet a symbol of that pulsing golden 

 happiness that is the heritage unclaimed 

 of so many. The bees and the birds need 

 no philosopher's stone, they have something 

 better in the sweet air, they live every 

 moment happily. In careless childhood 

 the dandelions were beheaded with a stick; 

 they are now a token of joy, these common 

 weeds, taking shallow root wherever the 

 wind flings their seeds. Summer to me 

 would be incomplete without the dandelions. 

 For what they symbol, would that there 

 were more in the drifted dust of the cities. 

 The music of the brook has risen from a 

 murmur to a dull thunder, and a humming 

 sounds under the maples. The miller has 



