AUGUST. 



All the long August afternoon, 

 The little drowsy stream 

 Whispers a melancholy tune, 

 As if it dreamed of June, 

 And whispered in its dream. 



The thistles show beyond the brook 

 Dust on their down and bloom, 

 And out of many a weed-grown nook 

 The aster flowers look 

 With eyes of tender gloom. 



The silent orchard aisles are sweet 

 With smell of ripening fruit. 

 Through the sere grass, in shy retreat 

 Flutter, at coming feet, 

 The robins strange and mute. 



There is no wind to stir the leaves, 

 The harsh leaves overhead; 

 Only the querulous cricket grieves. 

 And shrilling locust weaves 

 A song of summer dead. 



— William Dean Howells. 



ITH many of Nature's children, life 

 comes to its close with the success- 

 ful accomplishment of its sole pur- 

 pose for them, viz., reproduction, 

 or the bearing of fruit or seed. 

 This done, they leave their "out- 

 grown shell by life's unresting sea," willingly sur- 



