gone, and June is still missing. I look longingly afar, but
there is no flutter of her gossamer robes over the distant
hills. No white cloud floats down the blue heavens, a chariot
of state, bringing her royally from the court of the King. The
earth is mourning her absence. A blight has fallen upon the
roses, and the leaves are gone gray and mottled. The buds
started up to meet and greet their queen, but her golden sceptre
was not held forth, and they are faint and stunned with terror.
The censer which they would have swung on the breezes, to
gladden her heart, is hidden away out of sight, and their own
hearts are smothered with the incense. The beans and the peas
and the tasselled corn are struck with surprise, as if an
eclipse had staggered them, and are waiting to see what will
turn up, determined it shall not be themselves, unless
something happens pretty soon. The tomatoes are thinking, with
homesick regret, of the smiling Italian gardens, where the sun
ripened them to mellow beauty, with many a bold caress, and
they hug their ruddy fruit to their own bosoms, and Frost, the
cormorant, will grab it all, since June disdains the proffered
gift, and will not touch them with her tender lips. The
money-plants are growing pale, and biting off their finger-tips
with impatience. The marigold whispers his suspicion over to
the balsam-buds, and neither ventures to make a move, quite
sure there is something wrong. The scarlet tassel-flower
utterly refuses to unfold his brave plumes. The Zinnias look
up a moment, shuddering with cold chills, conclude there is no
good in hurrying, and then just pull their brown blankets
around them, turn over in their beds, and go to sleep again.
The morning-glories rub their eyes, and are but half awake,
for all their royal name. The Canterbury-bells may be chiming