AUGUST. 195 



there is an agreeable and peculiar odor rising from the 

 wet lands, which is characteristic of the month. Early 

 in the spring, when the mellow soil first receives the 

 warm rays of the sun, we perceive a healthful incense 

 from the newly springing herbs. This is soon succeeded 

 by the fragrance of the early flowers, and of the 

 tasselled trees and shrubs. Day by day new hosts of 

 flowers arrive in succession, until the air is full of the 

 spicy aroma of early surnmer. With August com- 

 mences the decline of these delicious gifts of vegeta- 

 tion; and the scents of autumn and of the harvest be- 

 come daily more abundant, until the arrival of the frosts, 

 that fill the atmosphere with those peculiar odors that 

 mark the fall of the leaf. 



When the pale orchis of the meads is dead, and the 

 red lily stands divested of its crown ; when the arethusa 

 no longer bends her head over the stream, and the last 

 roses are weeping incense over the faded remnants of 

 their lovely tribe — then I know that the glory of sum- 

 mer has departed ; and I look not, until the coming of 

 the asters and the goldenrods, to see the fields again 

 robed in loveliness and beauty. The meeker flowers 

 have perished, since the singing birds have discontinued 

 their songs, and the last rose of summer may be seen, 

 blooming upon its stem, in solitary and melancholy 

 beauty — the lively emblem of the sure decline of the 

 beautiful objects of this life ; the lovely symbol of beau- 

 ty's frailty and its transientness. When the last rose is 

 gone, I look around with sadness upon its late familiar 

 haunts ; I feel that summer's beauty now is past, and 

 sad mementos rise wherever I tread. 



It is my delight to seek for these last born of the 

 tribe of roses ; and they seem to rriy sight more beauti- 



