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 velvet peals down in
their dark cathedrals, but no clash nor clangor nor faintest echo
ripples up into my Garden World. Not a bee drones his drowsy song
among the flowers, for there are no flowers there. One venturesome
little phlox dared the cold winds, and popped up his audacious head,
but his pale, puny face shows how near he is to being frozen to death.
The poor birds are shivering in their nests. They sing a little, just
to keep up their spirits, and hop about to preserve their circulation,
and capture a bewildered bug or two, but I don't believe there is an
egg anywhere round. Not only the owl, but the red-breast, and the
oriole, and the blue-jay, for all his feathers, is a-cold. Nothing
flourishes but witch-grass and canker-worms. Where is June?--the
bright and beautiful, the warm and clear and balm-breathing Ju