THE OPPORTUNITIES OF THE YEAR 211 



AFTERMATH 



THE dust of August lies thick on the full leafage, 

 which tells already of the glare and stress of a 

 day that has passed high noon. The exuberance 

 has suddenly grown sedate. That short pause, 

 that sorrowful hush have we not all felt it? 

 has come when the genius of the garden stands, 

 with shaded eyes, looking after summer as she 

 goes to meet full-handed autumn. We miss the 

 song of the birds as they nested ; we look for the 

 flowers to gather as in the weeks that have fled 

 so quickly; but there are few. The merry frolic 

 is over, the year has grown middle-aged. But, 

 after all, there is an aftermath at hand. 



In the twilight of an August evening, and more 

 precious then than if they came in June, the ivory- 

 white pinnacles of yucca, stateliest of its kind, 

 stand out from the dusky background, phantom- 

 like. The shortening days give occasion, which 

 otherwise might be altogether missed, to mark the 

 strange shimmer of white flowers in the gloaming. 

 They seem more purely white, more spiritual. 

 Then it is that the sheen of the white lily caps 

 of martagon is most ethereal, and the pale stars 

 of nicotiana take on a lustre never to be imagined 

 by light of day when the dull flowers droop. The 

 North American buck-eye (Pavia macrostachya), 

 beautiful as are its candelabra-like spires of flowers 

 in the full sunshine of an August day, might well 

 be planted solely for this lovely twilight effect. 

 And oenothera has also a peculiar beauty of her 



