THINGS TO SEE THIS SUMMER 



19 



vast wheat-field, if wheat is your king ; or in a potato- 

 field if you live in Maine but no, not in a potato- 

 field. It is all underground in a potato-field. Nor 

 can cotton in the South, or wheat in the Northwest, 

 'give you quite the depth and the ranked and ordered 

 wealth of long, straight lines of tall corn. 



Then to hear a summer rain sweep down upon it 

 and the summer wind run swiftly through it ! You 

 must see a great field of standing corn. 



Ill 



Keep out from under all trees, stand away from 

 all tall poles, but get somewhere in the open and 

 watch a blue-black thunderstorm come up. It is one 

 of the wonders of summer, one of the shows of the 

 sky, a thing of terrible beauty that I must confess 

 I cannot look at without dread and a feeling of awe 

 that rests like a load upon me. 



" All heaven and earth are still though not in sleep, 

 But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; 

 And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep : 



The sky is changed ! and such a change ! Oh night, 

 And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 



Yet lovely in your strength 



Far along, 



From peak to penk the rattling crags among, 

 Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud, 



But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 

 And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 

 Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud." 





