328 OCTOBER. 



' On every side of our walk various plats of herbage 

 gleam upon our sight, each with some unmingled shade 

 of some lovely hue ; and every shrub and every leafy 

 herb presents the appearance of a scattered variety of 

 bouquets, wreaths, and floral embroidery. The farms in 

 the lowlands display wide fields of intermingled orange 

 and russet, and the shrubs of different colors that spring 

 up among them in clumps and knolls add to the specta- 

 cle an endless variety of splendor. The creeping herbs 

 and trailing vines, some begemmed with fruit, display the 

 same variety of tinting, as if designed for wreaths to gar- 

 land the gray rocks, and to yield a smile to the face of Na- 

 ture that shall make glad the heart of the solitary rambler, 

 who is ready to weep over the fair objects that have fled. 

 Day and night have at length about equally divided 

 the light and the darkness. The time of the latter harvest 

 is nearly past, and the winter fruits are mostly gathered 

 into barns. The mornings and evenings are cold and 

 cheerless, and the west-wind has grown harsh and uncom- 

 fortable. The bland weather of early autumn is rapidly 

 gliding from our year. Night is continually encroaching 

 .upon the dominion of day. The white frosts already 

 glitter in the arbors of the summer dews, and the cold 

 north-wind is whistling rudely in the haunts of the sweet 

 summer zephyrs. The scents of fading leaves and of the 

 ripened harvest have driven out the delicate incense of 

 the flowers whose fragrant offerings have all ascended to 

 heaven. Dark threatening clouds occasionally frown upon 

 us as they gather for a few hours about the horizon, the 

 melancholy omens of the coming of winter. But there is 

 pleasantness still in a rural excursion, and when the cold 

 mists of dawn have passed away and the hoar-frost has 

 melted in the warm sunshine, it is my delight to go out 

 into the field to take note of the last beautiful things of 

 summer that linger on the threshold of autumn. 



