NOVEMBER. 223 



who is left alone to mourn over the scenes of absent joys 

 and departed friends. 



But the silence to which I allude is chiefly that of the 

 singing-birds, whose voices are the natural language of- 

 love and rejoicing. There are still many sounds which 

 are characteristic of the month. Hollow winds are sigh- 

 ing through the half-leafless wood, and the sharp rustling 

 of dry oak-leaves is heard aloft in the place of the warb- 

 ling of birds and the soft whispering of zephyrs. The 

 winds as they sweep over the shrubbery produce a shrill 

 sound that chills us as the bleak foreboding of winter. 

 The passing breezes have lost that mellowness of tone 

 that comes from them in summer while floating over the 

 tender herbs and the flexible grain. Every sound they 

 make is sharper whether they are rustling among the dry 

 cornfields or whistling among the naked branches of the 

 trees. Since the forests have shed their leaves the voices 

 of the winter birds are heard with more distinctness, and 

 the echoes are repeated with a greater number of rever- 

 berations among the rocks and hills. 



Our rural festivities are past, the harvest is gathered, 

 and all hands are busy preparing for the comforts of the 

 winter fireside. The days are short, and the sun at noon- 

 day looks down with a slanting beam and diminished fer- 

 vor, or remains behind the cloud that often overshadows 

 the horizon. Dark clouds of ominous forms and threaten- 

 ing look brood sometimes for whole days over the sullen 

 atmosphere, through which the beams of the sun will 

 occasionally peer, as if to bid us not wholly despair of 

 his benignant presence. Every object in the rural world 

 tells of the coming of snows and of the rapid passing of 

 the genial days of autumn. The evergreens are the only 

 lively objects that grace the landscape, and the flowers 

 lie buried under the faded leaves of the trees that lift 

 up their branches as if in supplication to the skies. 



