FOOTSTEPS OF THE SEASONS. 207 



Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 



Over its grave i' the earth so chilly, 

 Heavily hangs the hollyhock, 



Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 



Tennyson. 



The black clouds gather upon the fringes of the sky, and the mellow- 

 season of the fruitage ends. The work of Autumn is done, and the 

 first breath of Winter is wafted over fading fields. 



Dim and dreary, and dark, in sullen and silent dread ; without 

 trace of a cheering spark ; like a demon in search of the dead — 

 crushing in icy grasp, and spreading his mantle of snow ; damming 

 the brook with his feet, forbidding its stream to flow ; digging the 

 grave of beauty ; blighting the buds of the earth ; forbidding the 

 growth of the year's fond flowers, by blasting their silent birth. The 

 footfall of Winter shakes the forest and the field — his breath shrivels 

 up the last leaf on the tree ; and when the vast portals of his temple 

 open, the season lies beyond in muffled mood and silence. Beneath 

 the leaden roof, huge vapours hang and cluster round each other into 

 mighty folds; up high in the dim recesses of its massive walls, the 

 storms of midnight greet and gather ; and from forth its icy and 

 cavernous deeps, the forms of darkness go in mad and howling com- 

 panies, to scatter all the green things of the earth ; driving before 

 them frighted flocks of snow, and burying, in one vast winding sheet, 

 the remnants of the unwept year. 



The last leaf fell — the hawk weed drooped and died — the fairy mullein 

 sank into its grave ; and when the wild west wind first whistled in 

 the dark, Old Winter awoke from his summer sleep, and shaking his 

 grizzled and hoary locks, he arose, mantled himself in morning mists ; 

 threw wide his grating doors, resumed his sceptre, and sent forth 

 his ministers of death. Upon his craggy throne he sat, girt with a 

 sparkling zone of ice, his meteor eye flashing in the dun darkness, 

 as he threw his glance over his own realms of night, and sent forth his 

 voice with a booming sound ; and as the echoes rolled upward, and 

 beat the sky like the billov/s of a surging sea, the north wind sang its 

 wizard song of thunder, and the hail and sleet danced wildly in their 

 joy. The weeping sky was frozen as it stood ; the soft dews of heaven 

 became like biting salt upon the grass ; and the great morning sun, 

 rising like a red eclipse, was startled in his march, and in his horror 



