And, darker than April violets
Or pallid as wind-flowers grow,
Under its shades from hill to meadow
Great beds of asters blow.—
Oh plots of purple o'erhung with gold
That need nor walls nor wardens,
Not fairer shone, to the Median Queen,
Her Babylonian gardens!
On Scotia's moors the gorse is gay,
And England's lanes and fallows
Are decked with broom whose winsome grace
The hovering linnet hallows;
But the robin sings from his maple bow,
"Ah, linnet, lightly won,
Your bloom to my blaze of wayside gold
Is the wan moon to the sun!"
And were I to be a bride at morn,
Ere the chimes rang out I'd say,
"Not roses red, but goldenrod
Strew in my path today!
And let it brighten the dusky aisle,
And flame on the altar-stair,
Till the glory and light of the fields shall flood
The solemn dimness there."
And should I sleep in my shroud at eve,
Not lilies pale and cold,
But the purple asters of the wood
Within my hand I'd hold;—
For goldenrod is the flower of love
That time and change defies;
And asters gleam through the autumn air
With the hues of Paradise!
Edna Dean Proctor.
Shortly before the Civil War, I went with father to St. Louis, he to take a place in the Washington University, while I was offered a position in the Mary Institute to teach classes of girls. Chancellor Hoyt of the university had been lured from Exeter, New Hampshire. He was widely known in the educational world, and was one of the most brilliant men I ever knew, strong, wise, witty, critical, scholarly, with a scorn of anything superficial or insincere.
I had thought of omitting my experience in this city, to me so really tragic. Just before we were to leave Hanover, a guest brought five of us a gift of measles. I had the confluent-virulent-delirious-lose-all-your-hair variety. When convalescent, I found that my hair, which had been splendidly thick and long, was coming out alarmingly, and it was advised that my head be shaved, with a promise that the hair would surely be curly and just as good as before the illness. I felt pretty measly and "meachin" and submitted. The effect was indescribably awful. I saw my bald pate once, and almost fainted. I was provided with a fearsome wig, of coarse, dark red hair, held in place by a black tape. Persons who had pitied me for having "such a big head and so much hair" now found reason for comment "on my small head with no hair." The most expensive head cover never deceived anyone, however simple, and I was obliged to make my début in St. Louis in this piteous plight.
We then had our first taste of western-southern cordiality and demonstrativeness. It occurred to me that they showed more delight in welcoming us than our own home folks showed regret at our departure. It was a liberal education to me. They all seemed to understand about the hideous wig, but never showed that they noticed it. One of our first callers was a popular, eloquent clergyman, who kissed me "as the daughter of my mother." He said, "I loved your mother and asked her to marry me, but I was refused." Several young men at once wanted to get up a weekly dancing class for me, but I was timid, fearing my wig would fall off or get wildly askew. Whittier in one of his poems has this couplet, which suggests the reverse of my experience:
"She rose from her delicious sleep,
And laid aside her soft-brown hair."
At bedtime my wig must come off and a nightcap take the place. In the morning that wig must go on, with never one look in the glass. Soon two persons called, both leaders in social life, one of them a physician, who had suddenly lost every spear of hair. I was invited by the unfortunate physician and his wife to dine with them. And, in his own home, I noticed in their parlour a portrait of him before his experience. He had been blessed with magnificently thick black hair, a handsome face, adorned with a full beard and moustache. It was an April evening and the weather was quite warm, and after dinner the doctor removed his wig, placing it on a plaster head. He was now used to his affliction. He told me, as he sat smoking, looking like a waxwork figure, how several years ago he awoke in the dead of the night to find something he could not understand on his pillow. He roused his wife, lit the gas, dashed cold water on his face to help him to realize what had happened and washed off all the rest of his hair, even to eyebrows and eyelashes. That was a depressing story to me. And I soon met a lady (the Mayor's wife) who had suffered exactly in the same way. She also was resigned, as indeed she had to be. I began to tremble lest my own hair should never return.