Down leaps and doffs his frock alert and plies In the Harvest Hymn,' by Mrs. Hemans, we have some beautiful and most appropriate thoughts on this season: Now autumn strews on every plain, Her flowing treasures on the ground. The infant corn, in vernal hours, The grateful song, the hymn of praise. As soon as the harvest is gathered, there is great rejoicing amongst those who have contributed to the safe garnering of the crops. The labourers Crowned with ears of corn now come, The festive board is prepared, and they all share the liberal hospitality of the master, in the shape of a good supper, to which they do ample justice. By degrees, yet surely, as has been remarked, autumn loses its early splendour, and nature becomes sober and even solemn in its beauty. The foliage of the woods and hedgerows changes its hue, becoming 'hectic, and grey, and fever-red,' a sure sign of the decay of vegetable life in the leafy structure. See the fading many-colour'd woods, Shade deepening over shade, the country round To sooty dark. "The particular colouring of the fading leaf varies with the species, and is maintained from age to age with unfailing precision. The leaves of the plane-tree become tawny; those of the hazel, yellow; of the oak, yellowishgreen; of the sycamore, obscure brown; of the maple, pale yellow; of the ash, fine lemon yellow; of the elm, orange; of the hawthorn, tawny yellow; of the cherry, red; of the hornbeam, bright yellow; of the willow, hoary; and most glorious is the appearance of the woodlands, owing to the variegated tints, when the component trees are of several species.'* Pope, in one of his letters, writes of Autumn :-' It is the best time of the year for a painter; there is more variety of colours in the leaves; the prospects begin to open, through the thinner woods over the valleys, and through the high canopies of trees to the higher arch of heaven; the dews of the morning impearl every thorn, and scatter diamonds on the verdant mantle of the earth; the forests are fresh and wholesome.' Rarely now is heard the song of birds; but Congregated thrushes, linnets, larks, And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late * Leisure Hour. On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock; Go eddying round. Thomson writes:- Now the leaf Incessant rustles from the mournful grove; Roll wide the wither'd waste, and whistle bleak. One of our great preachers,* in a 'Sermon on Autumn,' says:— There is an “eventide ” in the yeara season, as we now witness, when the sun withdraws his propitious light, when the winds arise and the leaves fall, and nature around us seems to sink into decay. When we go out into the fields in the evening of the year, a different voice approaches us. We regard, even in spite of ourselves, the still but steady advances of time. A few days ago, and the summer of the year was grateful, and every element was filled with life, and the sun of heaven seemed to glory in his ascendant. He is now enfeebled in his power; the desert no more "blossoms like the rose; "the song of joy is no more heard among the branches. and the earth is strewed with that foliage which once bespoke the magnificence of summer.' The days gradually shorten, and the nights grow longer and longer. In the words of Thomson : * Rev. Archibald Alison (1757-1838). The western sun withdraws the shortened day, In her chill progress, to the ground condensed The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the moon, Of silver radiance, trembling round the world. The dawning of the last autumnal day is pictured in beautiful language by the same poet :— The lengthened night elapsed, the morning shines And now the mounting sun dispels the fog; Of grass, the myriad dew-drops twinkle round. And by another poet, George Crabbe, one of the last days of autumn is thus described :— Cold grew the foggy morn, the day was brief, The dew dwelt ever on the herb; the woods Roared with strong blasts, with mighty showers the floods : All green was vanished save of pine and yew, That still displayed their melancholy hue; Save the green holly with its berries red, And the green moss that o'er the gravel spread. Tennyson, the present poet-laureate, says of 'The Autumn Flower Garden': A spirit haunts the year's last hours, For at eventide, listening earnestly, Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks Of the mouldering flowers. Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. The air is damp, and hush'd, and close, My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves Of the fading edges of box beneath, And the year's last rose. Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. And the Characteristics of Autumn,' Shelley thus gives : The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, And the year On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, The chill rain is falling, the night-worm is crawling, For the year; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone Autumn's changes are full of teaching to all. Another extract from the 'Sermon on Autumn' puts this teaching strikingly. The preacher says:-'We feel that all we witness is the emblem of our own fate. Such also in a few years will be our own condition. The blossoms of our spring, the pride of our summer, will also fade into decay; and the pulse that now beats high will gradually sink, and then must stop for ever. The mightiest pageantry of life will pass the loudest notes of triumph or of conquest will be silent in the grave; the wicked, wherever active, will" cease from troubling, and the weary, wherever suffering, "will be at rest.' |