" The garden is always beautiful, and I am nearly always 

 in the mood to enjoy it/* 



THE SOLITARY SUMMER. 



N 



SEPTEMBER 



ow 



" The robin sings amid the fading leaves, 



Brief notes that sum its fitful Autumn lay, 

 Full sad and sweet it comes at close of day ; 

 The heart for ended Summer sighs and grieves. 

 For, ever in its brief September lays, 

 We catch a prelude to the wintry days." 



The swallows are darting low over the stubbly fields and 

 close shorn meadows in the last golden rays of the fast-setting 

 sun, where, as soon as the light has quite departed, will be 

 born the Autumn evening mists. The perfume of the linger- 

 ing mignonette, together with that of the tuberose 



" The sweetest flower for scent that grows " 



steals upon the calm air ; the boom of beetle and hum of gnat 

 are the only sounds that break the stillness of the dying day. 

 Past is the sunlight ; in the west is but a faint light to show 

 where it sank, and the air, grown cooler, speaks too of its 

 flight. The mists, which were the first signs of Autumn's 

 coming, gather pearly over the garden, wrapping the velvet- 

 lipped snapnlragon, and other blossoms of which the garden 

 still boasts, in their white folds, rising around the escallonia, 

 whose fiery blossoms are still unextinguished, and that mingle 

 with the creamy flowers of the Magnolia grandiflora against 

 the wall. But the mists only rise a few feet above the earth, 

 for on high is a clear starry sky, from out which the mellow 

 moon begins to shine with a singular radiance, gazing down 



