92 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
sleeping beauty cry aloud and shine out in white 
apparelment which no desert or mountain dust 
can ever tarnish. “I am awaiting thee, my 
king.” 
Withal how the starlight has whispered unbe- 
known into the veins of the poppy. So we have 
not thought on it, nor would account us wise 
who whispered it, but the starlight hath sung 
its melody into the poppy’s heart so that the 
flower is garmented not by the sun but by the 
stars. The poppy is white as clad in woven 
starbeams. Night and the day are met when 
the glistering whiteness of the poppy opens at 
a whisper from the sun. 
The prairie is here. The sunflower hath 
climbed the hill. The desert hath not crowded 
this torch-bearer back. This royal flower is still 
elate. It slumbers not. There are no nights 
in the sunflower’s calendar. This prairie blossom 
wanders through all the halls of night with face 
so full of sunlit cheer as that all the long avenues 
of dreams are full as of quiet laughter with the 
lit lamps which cannot snuff their splendor 
out. The prairie watches for the sun as the 
mountain summits sublime are wont to do. The 
sunflowers are the prairie’s sentinels on whom 
command is laid. “Sleep not, but wake and 
watch the advent of my lord, the King.” And 
when the sun cries out along a hundred leagues 
of grass the prairie’s flower hath turned its 
hundred thousand faces to perceive his advent. 
