MINSTREL WEATHER 



richly draped and shadowy foliage of full 

 summer. Lustrous is the new red of 

 poison ivy and woodbine, of swamp 

 maple and slowly budding oak. Where 

 in July the hard light will play as upon 

 metal, lake and stream are faintly shim- 

 mering gray. Rain cannot dun the ra- 

 diant freshness, for trees thus queenly 

 clothed in blossoms never bend submissive 

 to the pelting skies. Let that fragment 

 of creation which bears umbrellas prostrate 

 its spirit before the " blossom storm," 

 seven times renewed the answer of the 

 flowered thorn is always exultant. Amid 

 departing petals which have played their 

 role and gone, voyaging on raindrops, "the 

 May month flaps its glad green leaves like 

 wings." 



Wild shrubs upon the mountain slopes 

 are in thronging bloom. Delicately pink 

 and nectar-laden, the prodigal azalea calls 

 to the honeybees, always bitterly indus- 

 trious and severely intent upon duty amid 

 a general festival. It is a great satisfaction 

 sometimes to find a bee overtaken by in- 

 toxication and night within a water lily 

 or hollyhock, his obtrusive good example 

 smothered sweetly. For once he was not 



[26] 



