Part 17 (2/2)

ADA FOSTER MURRAY

THE DANDELION

O dandelion, rich and haughty, King of village flowers!

Each day is coronation time, You have no humble hours.

I like to see you bring a troop To beat the blue-gra.s.s spears, To scorn the lawn-mower that would be Like fate's triumphant shears.

Your yellow heads are cut away, It seems your reign is o'er.

By noon you raise a sea of stars More golden than before.

VACHEL LINDSAY

JOE-PYEWEED

And the name brings back those kindly hills And the drowsing life so new to me; And the welcome that those purple blossoms With their tiny trumpets blew to me.

Stout and tall, they raised their cl.u.s.tered heads, Leaping, as a l.u.s.ty fellow would, Through the lowlands, down the twisting cow-paths; Running past the green and yellow wood.

How they come again--those rambling roads; And the weeds' wild jewels glowing there.

Richer than a Paradise of flowers Was that bit of pasture growing there.

Weeds--the very names call up those faint Half-forgotten smells and cries again ...

Weeds--like some old charm, I say them over, And the rolling Berks.h.i.+res rise again:

_Basil, Boneset, Toadflax, Tansy, Weeds of every form and fancy; Milk-weed, Mullein, Loose-strife, Jewel-weed, Mustard, Thimble-weed, Tear-thumb (a cruel weed).

Clovers in all sorts--Nonesuch, Melilot; Staring b.u.t.tercups, a bold and yellow lot.

Daisies rioting about the place With Black-eyed Susan and Queen Anne's Lace...._

Names--they blossom into colored hills; Hills whose rousing beauty flows to me ...

And with all its soundless, purple trumpets, Lo, the Joe-Pyeweed still blows to me!

LOUIS UNTERMEYER

TO A DAISY

Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide Like all created things, secrets from me, And stand a barrier to eternity.

And I, how can I praise thee well and wide

From where I dwell--upon the hither side?

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