IN ELYSIAN FIELDS 175 



of nature, and ask for an unselfish care to be rewarded 

 with the response of sweet returns. It is theirs to awaken 

 curiosity for plants everywhere, and to open the ears to 

 the songs of birds, the insect orchestra which dwells 

 within gardens, and all the while to sharpen the 

 inner spiritual sight to things invisible yet present in the 

 atmosphere. 



From the child's garden of simple plants to the fields 

 is a short step, and at autumn how glorious is the treat ! 

 A neglected pasture is a paradise. Here the mints riot 

 after their own fashion ; bergamot, horsemint, and others 

 of various names that have lingered past the summer, fill 

 the air with a pungent scent; and here live the late cone 

 flowers and the rudbeckias. Some vervain may wave its 

 blue spears here. 



The milkweed is busy filling its pods of silk, and the 

 everlastings are trimming their snowy flowers to make a 

 good appearance before frost. Ironweed and fireweed 

 and butterfly weed stayed as long as the warm days. 

 Their roseate mauves and dull purples gave rich hues to 

 the spread of color. Down in the grass, the silene, the 

 starry and bladder campions, loosestrife and turtlehead 

 and ladies'-tresses go on flowering as if autumn was not 

 near. Here the closed gentian, sturdier than the fringed, 

 makes bluer its globes to match the sky, and perhaps wild 

 chicory along the edge of the harvest field mirrors its 

 cerulean hues. The boneset and tansy tower above the 



