AUGUST. 197 



preparing for their annual migration, and all animate 

 and inanimate things announce the speedy decline of 

 summer. 



Already do I hear, at nightfall, the chirping of the 

 cicadas, whose notes are, at the same time, the harvest 

 hymn of nature, and a dirge over the departure of 

 flowers. When the evenings are perceptibly length- 

 ened, and the air partakes of the exhilarating freshness 

 of autumn, these happy insects commence their an- 

 thems of gladness ; and their monotonous, but agree- 

 able melody, is in sweet unison with the general 

 serenity of nature. Though these voices come from 

 myriads of cheerful hearts, there is yet a plaintiveness 

 in their modulation, which, like the songs we heard in 

 our early years, calls up the pensive remembrance of 

 scenes that are past, and turns our thoughts inwardly 

 upon almost forgotten joys and sorrows. How differ- 

 ent are these emotions from those awakened by the first 

 sound of the piping frogs that hail the opening of 

 spring, and which are attended by feelings of unmin- 

 gled cheerfulness ! All these sounds, though perhaps 

 not designed particularly for man, seem adapted by 

 nature to harmonize agreeably with our feelings ; and 

 there is a soothing and lulling influence in the song .of 

 the cicadas, that softens into tranquillity the melan- 

 choly it inspires, and tempers all our sadness with 

 pleasure. 



We no longer perceive that peculiar .charm of spring 

 vegetation, that comes from the health and the fresh- 

 ness of every growing thing ; and we cannot help asso- 

 ciating the flowers of August, with the dry, withered, 

 and dying plants that everywhere surround them. In 

 June, every thing in the aspect of nature is harmonious; 

 all is greenness and gladness, and nothing appears in 

 17* 



