My Garden sweet, enclosed with walles strong, 

 Embanked with benches to sytt and take my rest, 

 The knots so enknotted, it cannot be exprest, 

 With arbors and alyes so pleasant and so dulce.** 



CAVENDISH. 



OCTOBER 



TT was a handful of dead leaves which I gathered along a 

 favourite walk in the mellow charm of October's morn, 

 bright with the light that is shed in the year's golden-leaf 

 days, that turned my thoughts upon the mystery of colour ; 

 for everywhere around me the trees, half hidden in the 

 silver mists, rose as mountains of gold, and every hedge 

 appeared as a veritable Joseph's coat. To tell of Autumn's 

 leaf-beauty has been for countless able pens. But my hand- 

 ful of leaves were, perhaps, worth considering. The leaves 

 of the lime, like golden hearts, I gathered first, because they 

 were the first to give the signal of Autumn's approach. It 

 seems but yesterday that their honey-coloured blossoms 

 overburdened the air with perfume and we were able to walk 

 ankle-deep in buttercup-stars, listening to the piping of birds 

 in the cool whisper of the chestnut trees, their branches 

 weighed down with white spikes of blossoms. As with 

 golden coin the ground beneath the elm trees is sprinkled, 

 token of the last days in this leafs beautiful, brief life. For 

 in every tree there are three stages of coloration : the 

 emerald green of Spring, the dark green of Summer, the 

 tints of Autumn, which are endless in variety ; beautiful, 

 too, is the gradation from Spring's primal green to 

 Autumn's final hue. The first of the ash leaves fell at 

 the first touch of frost some weeks since, and those I 

 gathered to-day were of a dark and muddy tint, for it is 

 very casually that the leaves of this tree cling to the branches 



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