AUTUMNAL BEAUTY. Yet dear thy smile; to me as dear As any in Flora's gayest bowers: Oh! grant that hope, like thee, loved flower, Though earthly storms around me lour, And darksome be my weary way; Then, passed the grave's cold Winter, may I rise, 181 AUTUMNAL BEAUTY. THE brown Autumn came. Out of doors it brought to the fields the prodigality of the yellow harvest-to the forest, revelations of light, and to the sky, the sharp air, the morning mist, the red clouds at evening. Within doors-the sense of seclusion, the stillness of closed and curtained windows, musings by the fireside, books, friends, conversation, and the long meditative evenings. To the farmer it brought surcease of toil-to the scholar, that sweet delirium of the brain which changes toil to pleasure. It brought the wild dluck back to the reedy marshes of the south; it brought the wild song back to the fervid brain of the poet. Without, the village street was paved with gold; the river ran red with the reflection of the leaves. Within, the faces of friends brightened the gloomy walls; the returning footsteps of the long-absent gladdened the threshold and all the sweet amenities of social life again resumed their interrupted reign. HYMN FOR OCTOBER. BEHOLD the western evening's light! The wind breathes low; the withering leaf Scarce whispers from the tree; So gently flows the parting breath, When good men cease to be. How beautiful on all the hills The crimson light is shed! 'Tis like the peace the Christian gives To mourners round his bed. How mildly on the wandering cloud 'Tis like the memory left behind When loved ones breathe their last. And now, above the dews of night, So faith springs in the hearts of those And soon the morning's happier light And eyelids that are sealed in death Shall wake, to close no more. fled. "I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness."-Fer. iv. 25, 26. ARK-VISAGED visitor, who comest here, Clad in thy mournful tunic, to repeat (While glooms and chilling rains enwrap thy feet) The solemn requiem of the dying year; Not undelightful to my list'ning ear Sound thy dull showers, as o'er my woodland seat, Not undelightful, in their wild career, Is the wild music of thy howling blasts, Sweeping the groves' long aisle, while sullen Time BB |