174 WILD FLOWERS. 



SEPTEMBER. 



" Summer ebbs— each day that follows 

 Is a reflex from on high, 

 Tending to tlie darksome hoUo-ws, 

 Where the frosts of winter lie. 



" He who governs the creation, 

 In his providence assign'd, 

 Such a gradual declination 

 To the life of hrunan kind. 



" Yet we mark it not ; — fruits redden, 



Fresh flowers blow as flowers have blown, 

 And the heart is loth to deaden 

 Hopes that she so long hath known." 



Wordsworth. 



The September landscape is very beautiful, 

 for though the changing tints of the leaves 

 temind us that summer is going, yet they add 

 to the glory and richness of the present scene. 

 It is chiefly in remarking the flowers that we 

 see the rapid advance of the coming winter. 

 The flowers are now evidently lessening in 

 number. One by one the blossoms of mid- 

 summer have disappeared; and though some, 

 like the golden ragwort, are as bright as ever, 

 and though others, more delicate than this, still 

 bloom for us in some sheltered nooks, yet it 

 would be an easy matter to count the species of 

 flowers which open, for the first time, to the sun 

 of September. 



The tall and handsome golden rod, (Solidar/o 

 virgaurea,) with its crowded clusters of flowers, 

 does not unfokl for the first time in this month, 

 for it begins to bloom even as early as the end of 

 July J but it may be found in great perfection 



