NATURE AND THE POETS 105 



The dandelion is indeed, in our latitude, the pledge 



of May. It comes when the grass is short, and the 



fresh turf sets off its "ring of gold" with admirable 



effect; hence we know the poet is a month or more 



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 coun- 

 try, some weeks earlier than the tall buttercup and 

 the clover. These bloom in June in New England 

 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 dandelions. Let him say, — 



" The daisies and the buttercups 

 Gild all the lawn." 



I smile as I note that the woodpecker proves a 

 refractory bird to Lowell, as well as to Emerson : — 



Emerson rhymes it with hear, 

 Lowell rhymes it with hear, 



