A SEED IN WASTE PLACES 215 

 cab-wheels, and the burnt-oil smell sank 

 away. The seed bloomed in the palm of 

 my hand, and I saw its flowers of pure 

 yellow, and a whitethroat was slipping 

 through the nettles of the ditch. The 

 city was old, but the brown seed was older. 

 Men raised their buildings anew after the 

 great fire, hundreds of years ago ; the 

 flower did not change. My mind reached 

 back before the time of the Romans with 

 their tiled baths and chariots; further still, 

 when the first wild settlers made their hut 

 circles by the marge of the wooded river. 

 All the while the dandelion had been bloom- 

 ing so that the seed should be formed. No 

 haste, no strife, no misery : growing in the 

 sunlight. A lovely disk of gold, a summer 

 day, a wandering bee, and the mother- 

 beauty became the child-seed. And this 

 common speck, coming with the moving 

 air to my feet, was as old as the spirit that 

 manifests itself through dull matter in a 

 million million forms and ways. 



L.S. P 



