FOOTSTEPS OF THE SEASONS. ,?^05 



of the green solitude, unmolested by the hunter's dog or gun, his life 

 as sacred to thyself as to his Maker. 



The season has still its share of life and song, and the bee and the 

 ant, and clouds of lady-birds, and blue butterflies, and leopard and 

 goat-moths, and the gorgeous tiger-moth, and troops of flies are dancing 

 and singing before the golden gates of heaven. Up high amid the 

 blue dreamy clouds, the clear air seems to quiver with the play of 

 ■wings, and the soft humming comes floating along, sweetly mellowed 

 by mingling with the harvest song. 



" Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they ? 



Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, 



While harred clouds bloom the soft dying day, 



And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue ; 



There in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 



Along the river sallows, borne aloft, 



Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies ; 

 -And full grown lambs now bleat from hilly bourne. 

 Hedge crickets sing, and now, with treble soft, 

 The redbreast whistles from a garden croft. 



Keats. 



Upon the quiet ponds the dragon-fly is busy in depositing her eggs, 

 which she carefully lays upon the water, making at the same time a 

 strange noise, doubtless an appeal to the spirits of the time, to quicken 

 her brood and bring them forth in safety. The larvae, when hatched, 

 are the most disgusting little monsters under the sun, and may aptly 

 serve to symbolize the fate of man, who is but a grub or worm, flap- 

 ping about in the mud and mire, a sort of angel in disguise, wander- 

 ing about bewildered and lost, and mumbling and wallowing in 

 sorrow ; staining his wings, and defiling his soul with sin ; till the 

 time having come for him to awake from his madness, he claps his 

 wings, and ascends from earth to wanton in an element of light, and 

 to rejoice amid the beauty of unending summer. 



But Autumn wanes, and with it fade the golden tints and burning 

 hues, and the warm breezes ; for "Winter, with chilling clasp and 

 frosty breath, hurries like a destroyer over the fields to bury their 

 beauties in his snow, and to blanch and wither up, with his frozen 

 breath, the remnants of the blooming year. The harvests are gathered, 

 the seeds are sown, the meadow becomes once more green and velvet- 

 like as in the days of Spring : the weeds and flowers run to seed, and 



