Now the sandman comes a-calling, And those eyes can scarcely peep: It is little children's bedtime When the poppy goes to sleep. In the west the sun is sinking, And the chickens go to roost: And the poppy folds its petals That the beaming sun had loosed. * * * * * And the poppy like the Arab, Silent in the close of day, Fearful of the coming darkness, Folds its tent and steals away. Hear the sandman's final warning On the land and on the deep, Saying, "Good night, good night, good night," When the poppy goes to sleep. CHARLES McKNIGHT SAIN, in _The Call of the Muse._ AUGUST 27. THE SIERRA SNOW-PLANT. Thou growest in eternal snows As flower never grew; The sun upon thy beauty throws No kiss--the dawn no dew. Thou knowest not the love-warm marl Of Earth, but dead and white The wastes wherein thy roots ensnarl Ere thou art freed in light. Where blighted dawns, with twilight blent, Die pale, thou liftest strong, A tongue of crimson, eloquent With one unceasing song. O Life in vasts of death! O Flame That thrills the stark expanse; Let Love and Longing be thy name! Love and Renunciance. HERMAN SCHEFFAUER, in _Looms of Life._ AUGUST 28. IN A CALIFORNIA GARDEN. Thro' the green cloister, folding us within. The leaves are audible--our ear to win; They whisper of the realm of old Romance. Of sunny Spain, and of chivalric France; And poor Ramona's love and her despair, Thrill, like Aeolian harp, the twilight air-- So the dear garden claims its mystic due. Linking the legends of the Old and New. FRANCES MARGARET MILNE, in _The Grizzly Bear Magazine, June_, 1909. AUGUST 29. The evening primrose covers the lower slopes with long sheets of brightest yellow, and from the hills above, the rock-rose adds its golden bloom to that of the sorrel and the wild alfalfa, until the hills almost outshine the bright light from the slopes and plains. And through all this nods a tulip of delicate lavender; vetches, lupins and all the members of the wild-pea family are pushing and winding their way everywhere in every shade of crimson, purple and white. New bell-flowers of white and blue and indigo rise above the first, which served merely as ushers to the display, and whole acres ablaze with the orange of the poppy are fast turning with the indigo of the larkspur. The mimulus alone is almost enough to color the hills. T.S. VAN DYKE, in _Southern California._ AUGUST 30. THE MARIPOSA LILY.