"Outside the garden the wet skies harden? the gates are 

 barred on 



The summer side." _ SW , NBU RNE. 



OCTOBER 



Fast change the days to grey from gold ; 

 More close the year's fair pages fold 



Leaf on leaf together. 

 Tree after tree the world grows bare, 

 A calm more deep reigns everywhere, 



So fades Autumn weather. 



/ ""p s HE Autumn interlude, played ere the hues of the sunset 

 ^ of nature be wholly faded, is sweet, its suave melody 

 is restfulness to the heart, if sometimes a sad refrain to the 

 ear. It shows that we are, as Swinburne says 



" On winter's traces 



The mother of months in meadow and plain ; 

 Fills the shadows and windy places 

 The lisp of leaves and the ripple of rain." 



Were the leaves to fail in their mission, that by falling 

 tell the time of year so faithfully, there would still be left 

 to us a host of other heralds that speak with a wonderful 

 certainty of the advancing season. And perhaps two of the 

 most prominent Winter heralds are the mosses and the birds. 

 Allied to the mosses and fungi are those lovely encrusta- 

 tions, the lichens, which everywhere are now visible. Surely 

 they tell of coming Winter. George Meredith sings of this 

 season in his " Dirge in Woods " 



" A wind sways the pines, 



And below 



Not a breath of wild air ; 

 Still as the mosses that glow 

 On the flooring and over the lines 

 Of the roots here and there, 

 The pine-tree drops its dead." 



*54 



