46 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



father the ruler of all. Everywhere they 

 dwell, these imaginary spirits which inhabit 

 the things I meet on my daily tramps. They 

 are the true elfins or wood sprites which lend 

 to the old pasture much of its charm, much of 

 its power to lure me onward day by day. 



The hoary vervain, 16 many spiked, has opened 

 its blue flowers to heaven. Upward they gaze 

 into another blue, an ethereal blue, which seem- 

 ingly is, yet is not. The blue of the vervain 

 flowers is, to our sense of sight, really pres- 

 ent. 'Tis a pale purplish, dainty blue, not the 

 deep indigo blue of those evanescent flowers of 

 the common spider-wort. Blue, true blue, is 

 one of my favorite colors, that and such a shade 

 of red as the cardinal flower doth vaunt. Gray 

 also, except in clouds, doth sooth my sense of 

 sight; except in clouds say I, no leaden sky for 

 me. But that ethereal blue which reaches up 

 and up, far as the human soul can send its ray 

 of thought, 'tis blue divine, 'tis deep, un- 

 fathomable. So are many pools so is the here- 

 after. 



The densely flowered spikes of the vervain be- 

 fore me, some of them two feet in length, have 

 but an inch or two in blossom at a time. The 

 seed pods or fruit of the past are below, the un- 

 opened buds of the future above. The flowers 

 are now close to the top, the fruiting portion 



IB Verbena stricta Vent. 



