MICHAELMAS.

The brief September days are waning fast,

And a soft mellow fragrance fills the air

With Autumn’s sweetest incense; now the leaves

Begin to colour, and the varied hues

Of scarlet, amber, russet, crimson, dun,

Hang over wood and forest.

The bright stars

Of the chrysanthemums dot everywhere

The cottage gardens; the sweet mignonette

Still sheds her perfume ’neath the fuchsia-bells;

Scarlet geraniums and lobelias

Are in their fullest glory; here and there

A rose late-lingering shows her crimson cup,

Though gone her beauteous fellows; and aloft

The dahlia holds high her queenly head,

The sovereign absolute of all the band.

The swallows, gathering for departure, twit

Their shrill farewell; the dormouse and the bat

Go into winter-quarters; short the days,

And chill the lengthening nights:

For comes apace

Mellow October, last of the three months

That own the Autumn’s reign; then fogs and wet,

And snow and ice and wind-storms close the scene.

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] With regard to the theory of snake-charming, opinions differ. It is an undoubted fact that snakes will frequently emerge from hiding-places at the sound of the ‘charmer’s’ pipe; but shrewd observers have reason to suspect that a single snake can be made to do duty for many, having been taught to obey the summons of its master’s music(!) Thus, the wily Hindu will unobserved place his scaly pupil in some hole or crevice in the neighbourhood of a bungalow, or in the bungalow itself, whence he will lure it on a fitting occasion before an unsuspecting audience, who, deeming themselves well rid of an obnoxious intruder, applaud, and remunerate the charmer for having secured and carried away his own property!—Ed.