JUNE. 83 



The dews hang heavily upon the herbage, and the white 

 frosts have gone away to join the procession of the chill 

 autumnal nights. The little modest spring flowers are 

 half hidden beneath the prouder foliage of the flowers of 

 summer ; the violets can hardly look upon us from un- 

 der the broad leaves of the fern ; and the anemones, like 

 some little unpretending beauty in the midst of a glitter- 

 ing crowd, are scarcely observed as they are fast fading 

 beneath the shade of the tall shrubbery. The voice of the 

 early song-sparrow and the tender warbling of the blue- 

 bird are but faintly audible amidst the chorus of louder 

 musicians ; the myriads of piping creatures are silent in the 

 wet places, and the tree-frogs, having taken up their song, 

 make a constant melodious croaking, after nightfall, from 

 the wooded swamps. The summer birds have all arrived ; 

 their warbling resounds from every nook and dell ; thou- 

 sands of their nests are concealed in every grove and 

 orchard, among the branches of the trees, or on the ground 

 beneath a tuft of shrubbery ; egg-shells, of various hues, 

 are cast out of their nests, and the callow young lie in the 

 open air, exposed to the tender mercies of the genial 

 month of June. 



The season of anticipation has passed away ; the early 

 month of fruition has come; the hopes of our vernal 

 morning have ripened into realities; we no longer look 

 into the future for our enjoyments, but we revel at length 

 in all those pleasures from which we expected to derive 

 a perfect satisfaction. The month of June is emblemati- 

 cal of the period of life that immediately succeeds the 

 departure of youth, when all our sources of enjoyment 

 are most abundant, and our capacity for higher pleasure 

 has attained maturity, and when the only circumstance 

 that damps our feelings is the absence of that lightness 

 of heart arising from a hopeful looking forward to the 

 future. Our manhood and our summer have arrived, 



