November.
Transitions from gay to grave are so much in the manner of Hood that you will not wonder if I sandwich between the playful production of his muse just quoted, and another still more grotesque to follow, an example of his verse, in which the bizarre yields entirely to the beautiful, the tricksy to the true, leaving “a gem of purest ray serene” for the coronal of pastoral poetry. It is the charming idyl,
“RUTH.”
She stood breast-high amid the corn,
Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripened,—such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,