^A golden insect hums aloft; 



A wind steals in, and whispers soft ; 



To search the garden. through and through/' 



WHYTE MELVILLE. 



AUGUST 



Ere harvest reigns, and fields of gold 



Resound with reapers' glad refrains, 

 Sweet August-land, what promise told 

 Ere harvest reigns ! 



A golden hand with furrow-veins 

 In many a spot seems to unfold, 

 Where poppies' crimson fire fast wanes. 



Now gardens fewer roses hold ; 



O'er drowsy hills and sleepy plains 

 The moon grows lustrous with gold 

 Ere harvest reigns ! 



CAVE for a few days of cold rain, the August-land at noon 

 seems wrapped in sleep, and over all has fallen the 

 silence that one notices before it is harvest. We are on 

 the very verge of the gathering in of the corn, once the 

 happiest, busiest time of the year, when the golden acres 

 were cut with sickle and thrashed with flail. The last fairy 

 bloom on the long stalk of the foxglove has just withered 

 away, its beautiful purple has given place to the 



" Lustre of the long convolvulus." 



We are familiar with both of the convolvulus blossoms, C. 

 arvensis and C. sfyium the latter of the hedges and the 

 former gracefully trailing along the borders of the harvest 

 fields and of a sweet fragrance. Each passing week the garden 

 holds fewer roses, and to make up for their loss, those 

 blossoms which herald in the Autumn make their appearance. 



'94 



