" Broad'f aced asters by my garden walk," 



CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. 



OCTOBER 



f I V HERE are, perhaps, no prettier pictures than some of the 

 old cottages around here whose walls are clad with 

 vine-leaves turning golden, while from out the wind-stirred 

 foliage bunches of grapes white and purple are peeping. 

 In these gardens the " moss'd trees are bent with apples," 

 sunned to rosiness, and as red as the healthy flush on the 

 cheeks of the happy cottage children. On everything has 

 fallen that solemn peace that only early Autumn knows. 

 No bird is heard save the voice of the robin singing a requiem 

 over the grave of the dead lilies, for hushed was the bird- 

 music when the sultry days of Summer commenced. The 

 pleasant murmur of insects, too, is stilled, that made sweet 

 music by hedgerow and fieldside chiefly the busy bees skim- 

 ming the breast of a million waving flowers and quivering 

 grasses. Thus it seems that amid the Autumn peace, with 

 the year's greatest work done, Nature is contemplating her 

 great plans for the coming Winter. Golden paths are lit 

 with the last floral fires in the glow of the purple phloxes 

 and lingering asters which are fast giving place to the true 

 flower of Autumn the chrysanthemum. Dim grows the eye 

 of the garden's most majestic flower 



" Sunflowers looking up to the sun, 

 A flower sun, it grows, I ween, 

 A hundred blossoms and yet one." 



While the genial days are yet ours, the frail petunias will 



still keep friends with us ; nor is any Autumn garden complete 



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