AUTUMN. 127 



Can thy soul sleep unconscious of the time 

 When, wandering through the solitary scenes 

 Of lone, luxuriant nature, thy soft words 

 Responded love to mine — thy timid eyes, 

 Languishing in their lustre, met my glance 

 Of ardent feeling with a smile of hope ; 

 Or when beneath the extended beechen shade 

 Reclining, in the depths of passion's dream 

 Intense with extasy our burning lips 

 Met in a long embrace — and every sigh 

 That stirred thy bosom was a sound of joy 

 A promise of affection — every tone 

 The foretaste of approaching happiness. 



O, beautiful as faithless 1 though thy love 

 Is lost to me for ever, mine remains 

 Unchanging and unchanged — my aching heart 

 Shall dwell for ever on the single thought 

 Of what thou wert, and in the silent time 

 Of shadowy night thine image shall be near. 

 With its fair beauty and entrancing grace, 

 And bid me — even in sorrow^s secret gloom — 

 O, beautiful as faithless ! — still to love 



Leon. 



Devonshire Place. 



AUTUMN. 



" Linger then yet a while 



As the last leaves on the bough. 

 Ye have loved the gloom of many a smile 



That is taken from you now." 



Mrs. Hemans. 



Had we the tender and pathetic expression of Bryant to clothe 

 our musings, we should dwell long and thrillingly upon the lessons 

 taught so forcibly in the advent of sober suited autumn. Coldly 

 indeed must be the look upon nature and her changes, who does 

 not find a luxury of sentiment in the contemplation of all her sea- 

 sons. All are but chords to that instrument which yields its tone 

 to every breath of man, and vibrates involuntarily to every feeling of 

 his breast. In the spring, the fairy melody is made up of the un- 

 mingled warbling of rapture, the involuntary trills of untaught 

 fingers, the overflowings of that spirit of gladness, which gave my- 



