Hot days like this will wound or bless,
At home as in the wilderness.
The wind, with burning feet,
Lingers along the wheat;

The honeysuckle droops;
The scarlet poppy stoops,
And on the garden-bed
Lays down her silken head.

So in the mountain walk
Of untrod Moosilauke
The purple orchis turns
Black, and the cornel burns.
Through the dead banks of haze
The tongues of heaven blaze;
And life draws down from flower and shoot,
To lie in secret at the root.