The music of Nature * . * like many . * * of our little 

 songs . * * requires a poet to feel and understand it. 

 Sing them in the valley and woodland shadows, and 

 under the leafy roofs of garden walks, . , Sing 

 them not in the loud world!** 



L ONGFELLOW. 



SEPTEMBER 



A UTUMN-TIDE is here truly. One has only to look 

 across the land at misty morn to discover the fact. 

 The sultry days of late Summer at last relinquished, these 

 present morns open with all the beautiful characteristics 

 which belong to Autumn, found principally in the mists and 

 falling leaves, which fall faster from the trees, 



" First one and then another, till the branch 

 Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils." 



Day by day at sunrise the hedges are festooned more thickly 

 with the fairy gossamers, woven into the most fantastic 

 patterns ; each long line of silk is strung with dew-jewels, 

 and so exquisitely delicate are the gems of Autumn morn 

 that even the lightest touch from human hand spoils their 

 beauty and dims their lustre. While the morning mists lie 

 over all on lowly earth, the blue sky is seen above ; sun- 

 flowers gleam boldly through the motionless vapour from 

 their lofty stems, shedding a light that mocks the sky's 

 golden orb. 



Breaking the dawn-silence at last, the birds begin their 

 notes, sounding sweetly on the fresh air, birds unseen until 

 the hour of the clearing of the mist has come, when the 

 sun, gathering strength, draws up into its rays from the 

 earth its harvest of dew sown by the hand of night. And 

 then, when the light has fully come, insect life begins to 



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