" I, too, must wander lonely round, 

 And mourn through all the garden ground, 

 My early withered flower/* 



WHYTE- MELVILLE. 



OCTOBER 



Golden bracken in the hollow, 



Golden leaves upon the wind, 

 Tells of Winter soon to follow, 



Summer, Autumn, left behind. 

 Ah, for all sweet seasons over, 

 No leaf left the land to cover. 



All the world is very weary, 

 Sad the hours of flowers bereft ; 



All the days are very dreary 

 When the trees are leafless left. 



Wait in patience till the flower 



Comes back with Spring's magic power. 



* I V HE season of gardens is over and Autumn is keeping 

 her sunlit festivals. Day after day she revels in golden 

 glory, and one has time at this season to behold the beauty 

 of leaf-formation, so diverse in pattern. Look under the 

 hedge, where, half buried in heaped-up golden hawthorn- 

 leaves, a spike of the cuckoo-pint or wake-robin berries 

 strike a note of rich vermilion in the chord of surrounding 

 harmony. Note also the string of heart-shaped leaves of 

 the briony thrown in lovely carelessness over the hedge, 

 and the tiny fire-red leaves of the cranesbill close pressed 

 among the moss, and then try whether you can catalogue 

 or name the varied tints ! And as to the leaf, which is the 

 plant's chief gladness, it was pointed out nearly a hundred 

 years since by Goethe in his " Metamorphoses of Plants," that 

 all parts of a flower are simply modifications of the ordinary 

 green leaves, they being altered in size, form, colour, texture, 



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