THE CLOSE OF AUTUMN. BY W. C. BRYANT. THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove the withered leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay; And from the wood top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung and stood, In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sister hood? Alas! they all are in their graves of flowers the gentle race Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours; The rain is falling where they lie-but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago; And the brier-rose and the orchis died, amid the summer's glow ; But on the hill the golden rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen. And now when comes the calm mild day—as still such days will come To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts are heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill; The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty The fair meek blossom that grew up, and faded by my side: In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a lot so brief; Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. ELEGY BY A SCHOOLBOY. How blessed was I at Dobson's ball! The fiddlers come, my partner chosen ! My oranges were five in all,— Alas, they were not half-a-dozen ! For soon a richer rival came, And soon the bargain was concluded; To leave me for an orange more! Could not your pockets full content ye? What could you do with all that store? He had but six, and five were plenty ! And mine were biggest, I protest, For some of his were only penny ones; While mine were all the very best, As juicy, large, and sweet as any one's. Could I have thought, ye beaux and belles, Could move my fair one thus to shun me! All night I sat in fixed disdain, While hornpipes numberless were hobbled: I watched my mistress and her swain, And saw his paltry present gobbled. But when the country-dance was called, What other could I think to take? Of all the school she was the tallest ; What choice worth making could I make,— None left me but the very smallest ! But now all thoughts of her adieu ! This is no time for such diversion; And I must write my Latin version. Yet all who that way are inclined, This lesson learn from my undoing - THE EMBARKATION OF CLEOPATRA. BY T. K. HERVEY. 1 The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold: Purple the sails; and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver; Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. FLUTES in the sunny air! And harps in the porphyry halls ! SHAKSPEARE. And a low, deep hum like a people's prayer, - With its heart-breathed swells and falls! And an echo like the desert's call Flung back to the shouting shores ! And the river's ripple, heard through all, As it plays with the silver oars! |