O'er garden*blooms f on tides of musk, 

 The beetle booms adown the glooms, 

 And bumps along the dusk/' 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. 



JUNE 



/ "T A HE songs of day, the soft zephyr-music, the whisper of 

 ^ the leaves on the gently swaying branches, are all but 

 hushed, now that the June daylight wanes fast away. The 

 silvery twilight creeps with noiseless steps into the gay June 

 garden, whose beds, lawn-sides, and pathways, are "a mosaic 

 of nectared sweets." One almost feels the hush of the 

 scented dusk as it creeps over the gables of the old house, 

 and stirs the weather-worn vane, stealing into the open 

 casement, draped with roses. The crested wrens, the white- 

 throats, and yellow-hammers have finished their warbling, 

 thrilling the soul of the sunlight with their songs, making the 

 Canterbury-bells and the roses dance to the rhythm of their 

 notes ; the chiff-chaffs and chaffinches, too, sing merrily, 

 making the orchard at the end of the garden echo their chan- 

 sonettes. They began their lays when 



" Morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime, 

 Advancing sow'd the earth with Orient pearl." 



But the strings of their golden lyres are slackened, and the 

 black bat flits, now low over the bushes of syringa, now high 

 over the lazy vane. When twilight falls, who does not love 

 to watch the garden-world grow dim, the hour when the deep 

 tints of the carnations deepen, when the white pinks grow 

 violet, covered with evening's veil, their breath growing more 

 fragrant moment by moment, until they are laid to rest in the 

 garden's perfumed bed ? The inmates of the garden were 

 really tired, for to-day they were "At Home," and such a 



