AUGUST 



21 



The Purple Grass (Eragrostis pectinaced) is now 

 in the height of its beauty. I remember still when 

 I first noticed this grass particularly. Standing 

 on a hillside near our river, I saw, thirty or forty 

 rods off, a stripe of purple half a dozen rods long, 

 under the edge of a wood, where the ground sloped 

 toward a meadow. . . . On going to and examining 

 it, I found it to be a kind of grass in bloom, hardly 

 a foot high, with but few green blades, and a fine 

 spreading panicle of purple flowers, a shallow, pur- 

 plish mist trembling around me. 



THOREAU: Autumnal Tints. 



22 



Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold 

 That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, 

 Heavy with sunshine droops the goldenrod, 

 And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers 

 Hang motionless upon their upright staves. 

 The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, 

 Wing-weary with its long flight from the south, 

 Unfelt ; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf 

 With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, 

 Confesses it. The locust by the wall 

 Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm. 



WHITTIER: Among the Hills. 



