In dusty pods the milkweed Its hidden silk has spun; The sedges flaunt their harvest In every meadow nook, And asters by the brookside Make asters in the brook; From dewy lanes at morning The grapes' sweet odors rise; At noon the roads all flutter With yellow butterflies By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer.

In dusty pods the milkweed Its hidden silk has spun; The sedges flaunt their harvest In every meadow nook, And asters by the brookside Make asters in the brook; From dewy lanes at morning The grapes' sweet odors rise; At noon the roads all flutter With yellow butterflies By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer.

The bridesmaids might all wear the cheapest of farmers' hats, with huge bunches of goldenrod or asters on them or else such things as little kitchen utensils sewed on the front in place of flowers.

Looking westward, their colors are lost in a blaze of light; but in other directions the whole forest is a flower-garden, in which these late roses burn, alternating with green, while the so-called "gardeners," walking here and there, perchance, beneath, with spade and water-pot, see only a few little asters amid withered leaves.

The asters cordifolias and macrophyllus also are common, asters of little or no color, and sometimes without petals.

In the centre of it I found one Janny, or rather his marble bust, brooding over a minute iron-railed garden of half-dried asters opposite a shut-up school, which it appeared from the inscription Janny had founded somewhere in the arid Thirties.

Addison, who was probably unacquainted with the flower described by Virgil, represents the Italian aster as a purple bush, with yellow flowers, instead of telling us that the flower had a yellow disk and purple rays.