The twilight now has closed; but all the scene
Of wonders is not ended. Crowning all,
The mystic Night, with all her train of worlds,
Appears sublime in beauty. Fancy now
Escapes from earth, and soars beyond the stars.
Dear sister, so let our short day be spent,
That when our sun is set, its parting beams
May shine on years yet distant; and when Time
Has whelmed us in the wreck of all that's gone,
Our rising may be joyous!
THE mountain streams are silent,
Or whisper faint and low,
The Earth is grateful to the dews
For moisture which the clouds refuse,-
Blow, west wind! blow!
And fall, O gentle Rain!
Awake the music of the bowers,
Unfold the beauty of the flowers ;-
The corn-fields long to hear thy voice,
And woods and orchards will rejoice
To see thee, gentle Rain!
It comes! The gushing wealth descends!
Hark! how it patters on the leaves !
Hark! how it drips fom cottage eaves!-
The pastures and the clouds are friends-
Drop gently, gentle Rain!
The fainting corn-stalk lifts its head,
The grass grows greener at thy tread,
The woods are musical again :
And from the hill-side springing,
Down comes the torrent singing,
With grateful nature in accord,
A full-voiced anthem to the Lord,
To thank Him for the Rain!
O WITH what glory comes and goes the year!-
The buds of Spring-those beautiful harbingers
Of sunny skies and cloudless times-enjoy
Life's newness, and Earth's garniture spread out;
And when the silver habit of the clouds
Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with
A sober gladness the old year takes up
His bright inheritance of golden fruits,
A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene.
There is a beautiful spirit breathing now
Its mellow richness on the cluster'd trees,
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods,
And dipping in warm light the pillar'd clouds.
Morn, on the mountain, like a summer bird,
Lifts up her purple wing; and in the vales
The rustling wind-a sweet and gentle wooer-
Kisses the blushing leaf and stirs up life
Within the solemn woods of ash deep crimson'd,
And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved,-
Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down
By the wayside a-weary. Through the trees
The golden robin moves; the purple finch,
That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds,-
A winter bird,—comes with its plaintive whistle,
And pecks by the witch-hazel; whilst aloud
From cottage roofs the warbling blue-bird sings ;
And merrily, with oft-repeated stroke,
Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail.
O what a glory doth this world put on
For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
On duties well perform'd, and days well spent!
For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves,
Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings.
He shall so hear the solemn hymn that death
Has lifted up for all, that he shall go
To his long resting-place without a tear.
NAY, William, nay, not so! the changeful year,
In all its due successions to my sight,
Presents but varied beauties, transient all,
All in their season good. These fading leaves,
That with their rich variety of hues
Make yonder forest in the slanting sun
So beautiful, in you awake the thought
Of winter,-cold, drear winter, when these trees,
Each like a fleshless skeleton shall stretch
Its bare brown boughs; when not a flower shall spread
Its colours to the day, and not a bird
Carol its joyance, but all nature wear
One sullen aspect, bleak and desolate,
To eye, ear, feeling, comfortless alike.
To me their many-colour'd beauties speak
Of times of merriment and festival,
The year's best holiday; I call to mind
The schoolboy days, when in the falling leaves
I saw with eager hope the pleasant sign
Of coming Christmas; when at morn I took
My wooden calendar, and, counting up
Once more its often-told account, smooth'd off
Each day with more delight the daily notch.
To you the beauties of the autumnal
year
Make mournful emblems, and you think of man
Doom'd to the grave's long winter, spirit-broken,
Bending beneath the burden of his years,
Sense-dull'd and fretful, "full of aches and pains,"
Yet clinging still to life. To me they show
The calm decay of nature when the mind
Retains its strength, and in the languid eye
Religion's holy hopes kindle a joy
That makes old age look lovely. All to you
Is dark and cheerless; you, in this fair world,
See some destroying principle abroad,
Air, earth, and water full of living things,
Each on the other preying; and the ways
Of man, a strange perplexing labyrinth,
Where crimes and miseries, each producing each,
Render life loathsome, and destroy the hope
That should in death bring comfort. Oh, my friend, That thy faith were as mine! that thou couldst see Death still producing life, and evil still
Working its own destruction; couldst behold
The strifes and troubles of this troubled world
With the strong eye that sees the promised day
Dawn through this night of tempest! All things then
Would minister to joy; then should thy heart
Be heal'd and harmonized, and thou wouldst feel
God, always, everywhere, and all in all.
THE LAST DAY OF AUTUMN.
THE year lies dying in this evening light:
The poet, musing in autumnal woods,
Hears melancholy sighs
Among the wither'd leaves.
Not so! but like a spirit purified,
The angel of the year departs; lays down
His robes, once green in spring,
Or bright with summer's blue;
And having done his mission on the earth-
Filling ten thousand vales with golden corn,
Orchards with rosy fruit,
And scattering flowers around,
He lingers for a moment in the west
With the declining sun,-sheds over all
A pleasant, farewell smile-
And so returns to God.
Now Autumn strews on every plain,
His mellow fruits and fertile grain;
And laughing Plenty, crown'd with sheaves,
With purple grapes, and spreading leaves,
In rich profusion pours around
Her flowing treasures on the ground.
Oh! mark the great, the liberal hand,
That scatters blessings o'er the land;
And to the God of nature raise
The grateful song, the hymn of praise !
The infant corn, in vernal hours,
He nurtured with his gentle showers,
And bade the summer clouds diffuse
Their balmy store of genial dews.
He mark'd the tender stem arise,
Till ripen'd by the glowing skies,
And now, matured, his work behold,
The cheering harvest waves in gold.
To nature's God with joy we raise
The grateful song, the hymn of praise'
The valleys echo to the strains
Of blooming maids and viilage swains-
To Him they tune the lay sincere,
Whose bounty crowns the smiling year.
The sounds from every woodland borne,
The sighing winds that bend the corn,
The yellow fields around proclaim
His mighty, everlasting name.
To nature's God united raise
The grateful song, the hymn of praise!
HARVEST HOME.
MEN of sinew! hale and hearty,
Brave at scythe and sickle, come;
Come and swell our gleesome party,
Reapers, sturdy reapers, come!
Time for all things, this for leisure;
Time for all things, this for pleasure;
Sing our merry Harvest-home!
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