Nature-notes and impressions : in prose and verse / by Madison Cawein [electronic text]

The blossoms of the shin-leaf, hued and shaped like forget-me-nots, on the tops of their stiff, prim-looking stalks, tower gracefully from the low whorl of their large mullein-like leaves. Not far away the goat's-rue, with its papilionaceous flowers, looking like many saffron and rose colored butterflies, makes glorious the rocky hillside sloping to the little creek singing, like a happy child amid its gathered wildflowers, unseen in the woody hollow.

Snug in its curled-up leaf the spider hides, safe from the searching mudwasp, whining impatiently, flitting from flower to leaf. The blue-winged wasp and the yellow-winged grasshopper seem to be the only insects awake here where in countless numbers the wild onion blooms. Like the insects, the blossoms too seem asleep; their six-petaled, star-shaped flowers, pale lavender, almost white, dot the distance dimly. Their knob-like seeds on their tall, stiff, succulent stems give a polka-dot effect to the tall grass—white dottings on a green background. Here in the dense underwoods the wood-dove nests. Far away, mournful in the nooning, I heard her cooing.