Timeless Night 113 



some of the scarcer and more splendid manifesta- 

 tions may never repeat themselves within the span 

 of a human life. Great gales and floods extort a 

 memorial from human suffering and loss ; but 

 milder events of nature may pass almost unregarded, 

 though no less august and rare. 



In June and early July the most constant lights 

 of the night are the pale midsummer blossoms. The 

 glory of the moon and stars is cut short by late 

 sunsets and early dawns ; and the Plough, which 

 is the genius of night in our northern skies, has 

 scarcely begun to swing low across the north, as 

 best we know it, before it is sponged out by morning. 

 But as soon as the twilight falls, whether the night 

 be fair or cloudy, the white flowers shine forth in 

 the meadows and about the woodsides, and earth 

 stands lit till morning with their drowsier stars and 

 moons. 



Broadest of all these blossoms are the clustered 

 discs of the elder, which hang with a steady light 

 in the nights of unstarred darkness, and toss like 

 censers in the woodland when a damp wind brings 

 up the cloud. The last wild roses gleam in smaller 

 constellations among the elder's clustered moons. 

 Even by night, and independently of any waft 

 of fragrance, we can tell the scented pink rose from 

 the scentless white one. The white rose shines hard 

 and opaque in the dusk, while the pink one more 

 transparent even by day has a luminous and tender 

 light. Beneath these blossoms in the hedgerows 

 stand the smaller and whiter discs of the tall cow- 

 parsnip, which rises in shady places after the 

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