206 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



their rich crowns, before they fall. Even the leaves, when 

 they shrink and tremble in the autumn breeze, are full 

 of unwonted sweetness. And what can equal the oft de- 

 scribed glory of fall, when the grasses take their humble 

 russet garb, and the maple wears its "gorgeous crimson 

 robe like an Oriental monarch." For leaves also change 

 some only as the ermine whitening in the cold season, 

 or as birds who change their plumage in winter ; such are 

 the evergreens ; others change to live no more ; as man 

 does, before he also returns, dust to dust. Their bright 

 green grows pale, their vigor declines, their delicate tracery, 

 that had so often induced us to marvel and worship the 

 hand that made them, is effaced, and no longer serves to 

 pass the life-blood of the tree. Then they shrink and 

 shrivel, they flutter awhile anxiously on their feeble leaf- 

 stalks, as if reluctant to leave their sweet summer home, 

 and then comes the rude boisterous gale, and tears them 

 for ever from the parent tree. " The bare skeleton of the 

 tree becomes transparent, rising in spectral grandeur, as 

 it stretches, full of woe, its bare branches against the cold 

 evening sky, and rattles in the fierce tempest. A new, 

 ghastly light is shining through its stripped anatomy. And 

 it is a light, as with man the same light of heaven, which 

 in the waning lustre of life makes his spirit become 

 lovelier every hour, giving him a sublimer faith, a brighter 

 hope, a kindlier sympathy, a gentler resignation. Like 

 the autumn leaf, he also glows into decay, and kindles 

 into death. The sun of another world, already risen upon 

 his soul, though human eyes cannot behold it, burns through 

 the delicate texture of his thoughts, feelings and desires, 



