120 NATURE AND THE POETS. 



out of the season when, in " Al Fresco," he makes it 

 bloom with the buttercup and the clover : 



" The dandelions and buttercups 

 Gild all the lawn ; the drowsy bee 

 Stumbles among the clover-tops, 

 And summer sweetens all but me." 



Of course the dandelion blooms occasionally 

 throughout the whole summer, especially where the 

 grass is kept short, but its proper season, when it 

 " gilds all the lawn," is, in every part of the country, 

 some weeks earlier than the tall buttercup (R. acris) 

 and the clover. These bloom in June in New Eng- 

 land and New York, and are contemporaries of the 

 daisy. In the meadows and lawns, the dandelion 

 drops its flower and holds aloft its sphere of down, 

 touching the green surface as with a light frost, long 

 before the clover and the buttercup have formed 

 their buds. In "Al Fresco" our poet is literally in 

 clover, he is reveling in the height of the season, the 

 full tide of summer is sweeping around him, and he 

 has riches enough without robbing May of her dan- 

 lelions. Let him say, 



" The daisies and the buttercups 

 Gild all the lawn." 



I smile as I note that the woodpecker proves a re 

 fractory bird to Lowell, as well as to Emerson : 



Emerson rhymes it with bear, 

 Lowell rhymes it with hear, 

 One makes it woodpeckair, 

 The other, woodpeckear. 



