Having Passed The New Hampshire Line And Reached The Horseshoe
Interval In Tyngsborough, Where There Is A High And Regular
Second bank, we climbed up this in haste to get a nearer sight of
the autumnal flowers, asters, golden-rod,
And yarrow, and
blue-curls (_Trichostema dichotoma_), humble roadside blossoms,
and, lingering still, the harebell and the _Rhexia Virginica_.
The last, growing in patches of lively pink flowers on the edge
of the meadows, had almost too gay an appearance for the rest of
the landscape, like a pink ribbon on the bonnet of a Puritan
woman. Asters and golden-rods were the livery which nature wore
at present. The latter alone expressed all the ripeness of the
season, and shed their mellow lustre over the fields, as if the
now declining summer's sun had bequeathed its hues to them. It
is the floral solstice a little after midsummer, when the
particles of golden light, the sun-dust, have, as it were, fallen
like seeds on the earth, and produced these blossoms. On every
hillside, and in every valley, stood countless asters, coreopses,
tansies, golden-rods, and the whole race of yellow flowers, like
Brahminical devotees, turning steadily with their luminary from
morning till night.
"I see the golden-rod shine bright,
As sun-showers at the birth of day,
A golden plume of yellow light,
That robs the Day-god's splendid ray.
"The aster's violet rays divide
The bank with many stars for me,
And yarrow in blanch tints is dyed,
As moonlight floats across the sea.
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