MINSTREL WEATHER 



of long ago that once were hung every fall 

 from attic rafters the "wild isep," or 

 mountain mint, and the gray-blooming 

 boneset stand profuse but unregarded in 

 the lowgrounds. We buy our magic po- 

 tions now. Once they were brewed above 

 the back log, as occasion came. In ferny 

 shadows glimmers the ivory Indian pipe. 

 The wild carrot, with delicate insistence, 

 takes the field. 



Ironweed of royal purple, maroon-shot, 

 mingles in illogical harmony with the blue 

 vervain and magenta trumpet-weeds. The 

 note makers name over for us a score of 

 flowers that Shakespeare meant by "long 

 purples"; but surely he foresaw our 

 Northern swamps in August, on fire with 

 those exuberant, torchlike weeds that rise 

 tall above the bogs and earn, by their 

 arresting splendor against a crimson sky, 

 the need of immortality in song. They 

 bloom before the katydids begin and sur- 

 vive the first frost. A few violets a seed 

 crop, not intended for men's gaze, and 

 hidden cautiously beneath the leaves, are 

 timidly aflower. They will not go unwed, 

 but would crave to die obscure. 



The last of the new-tasting bough apples 



[46] 



