AUGUST. 137 



and viburnum. The lowlands were never more delightful 

 than at the present time, affording many a pleasant arbor 

 beneath the shrubbery, where the waters have dried away 

 and left the greensward as sweetly scented as a bower 

 of honeysuckles. In these places are we tempted to 

 linger for refreshment on summer noondays, — bowers 

 where it is delightful to repose beneath the shade of slen- 

 der birches whose tremulous foliage seems to whisper to 

 us some pleasant messages of peace. All around us the 

 convolvulus has trailed its delicate vines, and hung out 

 its pink and striped bell-flowers; and the clematis has 

 formed an umbrageous trellis-work over the tops of the 

 trees. Its white clustering blossoms spread themselves 

 out in triumph above the clambering grape-vines, form- 

 ing deep shades which the sun cannot penetrate, over- 

 hanging and overarching the green paths that lead through 

 the lowland thickets. 



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

 lily stands divested of its crown ; when the arethusa no 

 longer bends its head over the stream, and the later vio- 

 lets are weeping incense over the faded remnants of their 

 lovely tribe, then I know that the glory of summer has 

 departed, and I look not until the coming of the asters 

 and the goldenrods to see the fields again robed in beauty. 

 The meeker flowers have perished since the singing-birds 

 have discontinued their songs, and the last rose of summer 

 may be seen in solitary and melancholy beauty, — the 

 lively emblem of the sure decline of all the beautiful ob- 

 jects of this life, the lovely symbol of beauty'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 where'er I tread. 



It is my delight to seek these last-born of the roses, 

 and to my sight they are more beautiful than any that 



