78 THE JOY OF GARDENS 



of the Himalayas come to dwell in our gardens, we may 

 take comfort -in the thought that we are gathering the 

 rarest offerings of June, the gladdest of all seasons to 

 him who hath the secret learned "to mix his blood with 

 sunshine and to take the wind into his pulses." 



In mid-June comes an hour when garden color weaves 

 a tapestried background for the parade of the Oriental 

 poppies. Matchless in their beauty of scarlet and black, 

 bursting their buds in the gray of a dawn, vanishing in 

 the purple of dusk, it is well worth waiting a year to 

 greet them as they flit across the threshold of summer in 

 their brief span of life. 



If you know the poppies' haunts haste to seek them 

 out, the odalisk, the gypsy queen, in fluted petticoats 

 of red, flaunting their graces above fringes of silver 

 green, passing languorously in a dance they learned long 

 ago on the plain of Ind. They turn toward us with a 

 look of mystery, and sway upon their stems as a Romany 

 maid upon her dancing feet. 



Why do they not speak 1 ? The violet exchanges shy 

 confidences in perfume, the tiger lily confesses volumes 

 in sphinxlike wisdom, and we are loath to let the Oriental 

 poppy escape without a hearing; its attitude is so elo* 

 quent, its personality so vivid and glowing, and it nods 

 as if it knew the secret of the ages. 



Poppy friendship is a curious sentiment; it promises 

 much, and when about to unfold its passion withdraws, 



