THE AUTUMN CROCUS. 



of the garden, and still keeping itself calm and pure 

 from the touch of evil the holiest hour of earth. 

 The weather of September has many of the character- 

 istics of the weather of April ; the same rapid alterna- 

 tion of cloud and sunshine, of calm blue sky and dark 

 storm-change. The woodland foliage of October 

 departs with the same bright hues upon it with which 

 it burst forth in May. In the late autumn the exquisite 

 days of the Indian or St. Martin's summer come like 

 a mockery of June, when there is such a universal 

 harmony of earth and heaven that worship rises from 

 the heart like a spring; and God gives us, ere stern 

 winter closes the farewell scene, a Sabbath of the year, 

 in which the sunbeams, having done their work in 

 ripening the grain and the fruit, are now radiating their 

 glory all around for pure enjoyment a Sabbath which 

 we do not have to make but only to keep holy. And 

 whose heart is not touched to the core by the plaintive 

 little song of the robin, heard in the quiet hush of the 

 fading year in the aged apple-tree of the garden, from 

 whose boughs ripened fruit and withered leaf have 

 alike fallen? All the other birds are silent; but this 

 tiny, wavering, uncertain trill is an echo at the far-off 

 end of the year of the gush of song with which the 

 fair young creation of spring was ushered in. The 

 first authentic notification of spring is the song of the 

 robin, and the last lamentation over the declining 

 autumn is a plaintive repetition of it. Thus we find 

 that wherever nature sets she has an after-glow that 

 reminds us of the beauty and freshness of her prime. 



