WILD ASTERS

Child

White and purple asters, watching by the brook,
Tell me where you got your starry eyes.

Asters

Dearie, in their play the baby angels took
Blossoms from the garden of the skies.

Tossed them downward to us over heaven’s wall,
And we caught and kept them,—that is all.

SILVER-ROD

Edith M. Thomas

Who knows not Silver-rod, the lovely and reverend Golden-rod beautified and sainted, looking moonlit and misty even in the sunshine! In this soft canescent afterbloom beginning at the apex of the flower cluster and gradually spreading downward, the eye finds an agreeable relief from the recent dazzle of yellow splendour. I almost forget that the herb is not literally in bloom, that is, no longer ministered to by sunshine and dew…