Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/372

336 Grapevine and succory,

Coreopsis

And liatris,

Flaunting in their bowers;

Grass with green flag half-mast high,

Succory to match the sky,

Columbine with horn of honey,

Scented fern and agrimony;

Forest full of essences

Fit for fairy presences,

Peppermint and sassafras,

Sweet fern, mint and vernal grass,

Panax, black birch, sugar maple,

Sweet and scent for Dian's table,

Elder-blow, sarsaparilla,

Wild rose, lily, dry vanilla,—

Spices in the plants that run

To bring their first fruits to the sun.

Earliest heats that follow frore

Nervèd leaf of hellebore,

Sweet willow, checkerberry red,

With its savory leaf for bread.

Silver birch and black

With the selfsame spice

Found in polygala root and rind,

Sassafras, fern, benzöine,

Mouse-ear, cowslip, wintergreen,

Which by aroma may compel

The frost to spare, what scents so well.