ACCORDING TO SEASON 



" South winds jostle them, 

 Bumble-bees come, 

 Hover, hesitate, 

 Drink, and are gone," 



Clover sings Emily Dickinson, who elsewhere calls the 



clover the 



— " flower that bees prefer 



And butterflies desire." 



Indeed, although this is not a native blossom, it 

 seems to have taken a special hold on the imag- 

 ination of our poets. Mr. James Whitcomb Riley 

 asks, 



— " what is the lily and all of the rest 

 Of the flowers to a man with a heart in his breast, 

 That was dipped brimmin' full of the honey and dew 

 Of the sweet clover-blossoms his babyhood knew ? " 



It is generally acknowledged that our sense of 

 smell is so intimately connected with our powers 

 Assotia of memory that odors serve to recall, with pecul- 

 iar vividness, the particular scenes with which 

 they are associated. Many of us have been startled 

 by some swiftly borne, perhaps unrecognized fra- 

 grance, which, for a brief instant, has forcibly pro- 

 jected us into the past ; and I can imagine that 

 a sensitively organized individual — and surely the 

 poet is the outcome of a peculiarly sensitive and 

 highly developed organization — might be carried 

 back, with the strong scent of the clover-field, to 



80 



tion 



