FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 135 



" The black rooks are busy in the old oak- 

 trees carrying away the brown acorns one by 

 one in their strong beaks to some open place 

 where, undisturbed, they can feast upon the 

 fruit. The nuts have fallen from the boughs, 

 and the mice garner them out of the ditches; 

 but the blue- black sloes cling tight to the 

 thorn-branch still. The first frost has withered 

 up the weak sap left in the leaves, and they 

 whirl away in yellow clouds before the gusts 

 of wind. It is the season, the hour of half- 

 sorrowful, half-mystic thought, when the Past 

 becomes a reality, and the Present a dream, 

 and unbidden memories of sunny days and 

 sunny faces, seen when life was all spring, 

 float around: 



" * Dim dream-like forms ! your shadowy train 

 Around me gathers once again ; 

 The same as in life's morning hour, 

 Before my troubled gaze you passed. 



# # * 



Forms known in happy days you bring, 

 And much-loved shades amid you spring, 

 Like a tradition, half-expired, 

 Worn out with many a passing year.' 



" In so busy a land as ours, there is no 

 place where the mind can, as it were, turn in 



