PASTURES FAIR AND LARGE 



some hill-slope of such a kindly pasture may 

 the mullein set hundreds of its blossom-lit 

 candlesticks to piece out the waning light of 

 summer? 



Here too the sweetbrier rose, queen of 

 all wildings, holds her rustic court, for her 

 sake alone making any pasture worthy of 

 a pilgrimage to it. A sweetbrier may now 

 and then salute you from a roadside, but 

 how can one have any privacy with her 

 along the highway, with passers-by likely 

 to interrupt the rarest secrets she may have 

 for one's ear? No, indeed, it is only in a 

 pasture that you may hold long and inti- 

 mate communings with this shy divinity of 

 flowerdom. 



Such a privilege was once mine for weeks 

 in New Hampshire country, where grew 

 four most captivating sweetbrier bushes, 

 whose dainty pale blossoms were so thor- 

 oughly protected by long stalwart thorns 

 that to "love the wood-rose and leave it on 

 its stalk" was less a virtue than the Falstaf- 

 fian part of valor. In spite of its body- 

 guard, however, the incense of the sweetbrier 



105 



