336 
RURAL HOURS. 
enjoy them. And liere, indeed, we iind the precise extent of the 
difference between the relative beauty of autumn in Europe and 
in America : with us it is quite impossible to overlook these pecu- 
liar charms of the autumnal months ; while in Europe, though not 
wholly wanting, they remained unnoticed, unobserved, for ages. 
Had the same soft atmosphere of the " Indian summer" warmed 
the woods of Windsor, year after year, while Geoffrey Chaucer 
roamed among their glades, the English would have had a word 
or a phrase to express the charm of such days, before they bor- 
rowed one from another continent. Had the maples, and oaks, 
and ashes, on the banks of the Avon, colored the waters of that 
stream, year after year, with their own scarlet, and crimson, and 
purple, while Will. Shakspeare, the bailiff" 's son, was shooting his 
arrows on its banks, we should have found many a rich and ex- 
quisite image connected with autumnal hours hovering about the 
footsteps of Lear and Hamlet, Miranda and Imogen, and Rosa- 
lind. Had the woods of England been as rich as our own, their 
branches would have been interwoven among the masques of Ben 
Jonson and Milton ; they would have had a place in more than 
one of Spenser's beautiful pictures. All these are wanting now. 
Perhaps the void may be in a measure filled up for us by great 
poets of our own ; but even then one charm will fail — the mellow 
light of eld, which illumines the page of the old poet, will be 
missed ; for that, like the rich flavor of old wine, is the gift of 
Time alone. 
In the meanwhile, however, the march of Autumn through the 
land is not a silent one — it is already accompanied by song. 
Scarce a poet of any fame among us who has not at least some 
graceful verse, some glowing image connected with the season ; 
