The Lay of the Band 
see the top of achestnut tree, misty and tender, with 
foamy white bloom. These are the last of the season. 
The July flowering of the chestnut always seems de- 
layed and accidental. The season’s fruit has set, is 
already ripening. Spring is gone; the sun is over- 
head; the red wood-lily is open. To-day is summer, 
— noon of the year. 
High noon! and the hour strikes in the red wood- 
lily aflame in the old fields and in the low thick 
tangles of sweet-fern and blackberry that border the 
upland woods. 
This is a flower of fire, the worshiper of the sun, 
the very heart of the summer. How impossible it 
would be to kindle a wood-lily on the cold, damp soil 
of April! It can be lighted only on this kiln-dried 
soil of July. This old hilly pasture is baking in the 
sun; the mouldy moss that creeps over its thin 
breast crackles and crumbles under my feet; the 
patches of sweet-fern that blotch it here and there 
crisp in the heat and fill the smothered air with a 
spicy breath; but the wood-lily opens wide and full, 
lifting its spotted lips to the Sun, for it loves his 
scorching kiss. See it glow! Should the withered 
thicket burst suddenly into a blaze it would be no 
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