PEPACTON 



ahead of all others. The yellow violet belongs only 

 to the more northern sections, to high, cold, 

 beechen woods, where the poet rightly places it; 

 but in these localities, if you go to the spring 

 woods every day, you will gather the hepatica first. 

 I have also found the claytonia and the coltsfoot 

 first. In a poem called " The Twenty-Seventh of 

 March," Bryant places both the hepatica and the 

 arbutus before it: 



"Within the woods 



Tufts of ground-laurel, creeping underneath 

 The leaves of the last summer, send their sweets 

 Upon the chilly air, and by the oak, 

 The squirrel cups, a graceful company, 

 Hide in their bells, a soft aerial blue," 



ground-laurel being a local name for trailing arbu- 

 tus, called also mayflower, and squirrel-cups for 

 hepatica, or liver-leaf. But the yellow violet may 

 rightly dispute for the second place. 



In " The Song of the Sower " our poet covers up 

 part of the truth with the grain. The point and 

 moral of the song he puts in the statement, that the 

 wheat sown in the fall lies in the ground till spring 

 before it germinates; when, in fact, it sprouts and 

 grows and covers the ground with " emerald blades " 

 in the fall: 



"Fling wide the generous grain; we fling 

 O'er the dark mould the green of spring. 

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