22 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
though they be dwellers on the earth and not 
luminaries of the sky. 
They make me kinsman of the resurrection. 
They leap like a sun-drenched thought. They 
do not grow: they alight like an angel at the 
Bethlehem house. They are not sent for: they 
just come. Common folks they are, but clad in 
golden glory like children of a great king. 
When winter has been long and rigorous and its 
closing months have been perverse and there 
seems no outcome of long weeks of sulky weather, 
save hope delayed, then the dandelions make a 
rush like somersaulting children and sprawling 
around abundant glory and embodied joy of ar- 
rived harvest, as of wheat fields all gold. They 
give no promissory note, nor send a blue bird 
with melodious bugle to declare their march, but 
tumble to the ground, sprawl! about like a frolick 
of sunbeams kicking up, but do not kick up dust, 
but just sunlight, liquid sunlight and life at its 
spring. 
Were anyone to aver me inebriated by this rol- 
licking gold, I should not dispute nor demur. I 
should only look at the dandelion and bless God 
for its sunlight and multitude and _ roistering 
splendor like the wine of autumnal suns. God 
hath not often thought a sunnier thought than 
the dandelion at flower and the laughter of the 
world escaping like an angel from under the feet 
of outrageous winter. Winter is sinister, and the 
dandelion is the frankest mirth that laughs out 
