NOVEMBER. 



The mellow year is hastening to its close; 



The little birds have almost sung their last, — 



Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast, — 

 That shrill-piped harbinger of early snows. 

 The patient beauty of the scentless rose. 



Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed 



Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past, 

 And makes a little summer where it grows. 

 In the chill sunbeam of the faint, brief day. 



The dusky waters shudder as they shine; 

 The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way 



Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks confine, 

 And the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array. 



Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy twine. 



— Hartley Coleridge. 



ANY of the poets who should have 

 known better have seemed to think 

 that the month of November was 

 an appropriate subject only for a 

 dirge or an ode to despondency! 

 They have sung of both the nega- 

 tive and positive qualities of the month, but seldom 

 in a happy vein. They have rather made Novem- 

 ber the melancholy subject for the expression of 

 their sad and serious thought, — because perchance 

 they have exhausted themselves over the beauties 

 and glories of spring and summer, or because of 

 necessity they must be sad and serious at some un- 

 fortunate season. 



