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the wild cry of the partridge is heard at eventide, 

 and the shortening day, and the declining sun, 

 proclaim that the reign of winter is at hand. 

 How pleasing at this season is the twinkling of 

 the evening star ! how melancholy are the medi- 

 tations of him, who walks abroad to meditate, 

 like Isaac, at eventide ! 



Oh fading bowers ! 



Oh shortening days and nights of dreary length ! 

 How emblematic of the fate of man 

 Are ye, and of his fast declining strength, 

 His chequered lot, frail life, and fleeting span ! 

 Thousands have fall'n since joyous spring began 

 Its smiling course, say, shall the next be ours ? 



Now at morn and eve, if the weather be clear, 

 the earth is covered with hoar-frost. Vegetation 

 is every where passing rapidly into decay. The 

 oak, the beech and the hornbeam yet partially 

 retain their leaves, while those of almost all the 

 other trees are shrivelled by the blast, or have 

 returned to their parent earth. It is now that 

 the evergreen trees, the firs, and the pines, and 

 the hollies, which the splendid summer foliage 

 had thrown into shade, remain to claim our at- 

 tention and regard. And how coldly, serenely 

 beautiful it is as the shades of night clear away 

 before the uprise of the faint low sun, and the 

 robin hopping on the window-sill comes with its 

 sweet voice to solicit crumbs, to gaze abroad and 

 behold the earth enveloped in a winding-sheet of 

 snow, while the traveller passes by with sound- 

 less feet, and the eaves are armed with crystal- 



