nature's calm 



125 



clasps its leaves like clenched fists; the 

 wayside partridge-pea shuts its leaflets 

 into a clasp-knife, resembling its seed- 

 pod. The ox-eye daisy droops its 

 head and faces the sunset, but turns 

 until it again faces the sun at dawn. 

 The wild aster tribe curl their ray 

 flowers into little bundles, and the blue 

 gentian closes its fringed eyelids. 



In the garden some sleep and some 

 are awake. The poppy closes to a 

 pilgrim's cockle-shell, just as the even- 

 ing primrose spreads its green-gold 

 salvers; the eglantine simply curls in its 

 petals, as do also the single rose and 

 the blackberry. The calendulas draw 

 their rays into a stack, and the sturdy 

 lupins drop their leaflets or sometimes 

 shoot them up like reversed umbrellas. 

 The moon-flower, the white ipomea, 

 opens in rivalry a planetary system of 

 its own with the green trellis for an 

 orbit. 



