AUTUMN. 
327 
" Salut, bois couronnes d'en reste de verdure 
Feuillage, jaunissant sur les gazons epars," 
writes M. de Lamartine, in liis beautiful but plaintive verses to 
the season. 
In Germany we shall find much the same tone prevailing. 
In des Herbstes welkem Kranze," 
says Schiller ; and again, 
" Wenn der Friihlings Kinder sterben, 
Wenn vom Norde's kaltem Hauch 
. Blatt und Blume sich entfarben — " 
As for the noble poets of Italy, summer makes up half their 
year ; the character of autumn is less decided ; she is scarcely 
remembered until the last days of her reign, and then she would 
hardly be included among " i mesi gai." 
In short, while gay imagery has been lavished upon Spring and 
Summer, Autumn has more frequently received a sort of feuille 
morte drapery, by way of contrast. Among the older poets, by 
which are meant all who wrote previously to the last hundred years, 
these grave touches, in connection with autumn, are particularly 
common ; and instances of an opposite character are compara- 
tively seldom met with. 
There were exceptions, however. Such glowing poets as 
Spenser and Thomson threw a warmer tint into their pictures of 
the season. But, strange to say, while paying her this compli- 
ment, they became untrue to nature — they robbed Summer to 
deck Autumn in her spoils. They both — British poets, as they 
were — put off the grain-harvest until September, when in truth the 
wheat-sheaf belongs especially to August, in England ; that month 
