Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VERMONT WILD FLOWERS IN AUGUST, by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VERMONT WILD FLOWERS IN AUGUST, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The wild flowers all vermonters love
Last Line: The chickory and lady's lace.
Subject(s): Country Life; Fields; Flowers; Gardens & Gardening; Harvest; Mountain Life - Vermont; Pastures; Meadows; Leas


THE wild flowers all Vermonters love
Again the countryside adorn;
They're just as much a mercy, too,
As peas and beans or silo corn;
They feed the under-rationed soul,
And might be called a means of grace—
I'm special thankful this forenoon
For chickory and lady's lace.

The early Summer's color scheme
Grows soberer as the year grows old;
There's more a-doing 'mongst the blues
And 'long the line of heavy gold;
The brighter reds and pinks have gone,
I s'pose, to Flora's own embrace,
Though stuffy bee balm keeps along
With chickory and lady's lace.

There's blue vervain, or sacred herb,
And meadowsweet, or honey-wine,
And jewel weed, or touch-me-not,
And hairy-shanks, or columbine;
But clear, pale blue and creamy white—
The colors in an angel's face—
You get them both where chickory grows
All tangled up with lady's lace.

And then there's fire weed, steeplebush,
The cat-tail tribe and bouncing Bet,
And tansy and "St. Johnsburywort,"
And other worts that I forget;
Yet they're not bad, they look all right
Way off in some old pasture place—
They sorter lead the eyesight on
To chickory and lady's lace.

How glad the evening primrose looks!
How straight the figwort stands at morn!
Their kind and they are all that's left
Now that the summer fields are shorn;
But I'm against the golden rod
That blabs of Winter's hurrying pace—
Such talk disturbs the chickory so
And musses up the lady's lace.

I wish that Wallace Nutting's steps
Would take him over Shelburne Hill
Down Hinesburg way—I think he'd get
A dainty water color thrill;
I like the farmers on that road,
Their spirits can't be mean or base,
Or else they wouldn't do so much
For chickory and lady's lace.

Bloom on, dear friends, and do your bit,
You sure shall have this native's praise,
And may your kin in distant France
Survive these ghastly German days;
I wouldn't have one roadside flower
As sad as half the human race—
Crank up the car, let's go and see
The chickory and lady's lace.





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