VII 

 LATER FLOWERS 



'The winds that dash these August dahlias down, 

 And chase the streams of light across the grass. 

 This solemn watery air, like clouded glass,. 

 This perfume on the terrace bare and brown, 



'Are like the soundless flush of fuU renown 



That gathers with the gathering years that pass. 

 And weaves for happy, glorious hfe, alas ! 

 Of sorrow and of solitude a crown.' 



Edmund Gosse, "Melancholy in the Garden." 



T HAVE elsewhere told of a joyful recurrence on 

 -■- our place in Michigan of spring colors in au- 

 tumn, of groups and thronging crowds of Darwin 

 tulips in hues of purple to lavender, merging into 

 green summer foliage, to be recalled to memory in 

 September by clouds of hardy asters in the self- 

 same colors. There is a delicious melancholy in 

 this reminder. Yet there is also a hope. The 

 asters are a link between spring and spring — notes 

 of a music on the autumn air, a music not only 

 of a spring gone by, but of one to come. No- 

 where have I had a more poignant, more startling 



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