“Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only through the faded leaf,
The chestnut pattering to the ground.”
Autumn days! I think they would be very sad indeed if we could only see decay in them, and if God had not put a little safe bud and germ of hope into every bulb and upon every branch—a promise of future life amid universal death: just as He put that green promise-bud into the heart of Adam and Eve, when such a dreadful death had gathered about the present and the future for them—declaring, to their seemingly victorious foe, of the woman’s seed, that
“It shall bruise thy head.”
A tiny dear little germ of a bud, and oh, how many hundred Summers and Winters passed before it developed into the glorious perfect flower! And so now there is yet a sadness, but only a cheery, gentle, tender sadness, about Autumn days to the heart that is waiting for God. And it seems to me wonderful that He should have given us one of His own minstrels to sit on the twigs as they grow bare and lonely-looking, and to express to us just the feeling that Autumn calls up within the heart, and that we yearn to have set to music for us. The little Robin waits his time; he does not cease, indeed, to trill his note in Spring, although we do not notice him then amid our blackbirds and thrushes and blackcaps and nightingales; for he is very humble-hearted, and content to be set aside when we can do without him. But Autumn days come, and the nightingale has fled, and the blackcap is far away, and the lark and the thrush and the blackbird are silent;—then the robin draws near. Close to our houses he comes, with his cheery warm breast, and kind bright eye, and his message from God. And then he interprets the Autumn to us, in those broken, tenderly-glad thrills of song, that, simple though they be, can sometimes disturb the heart with beauty that it cannot fathom, but that agitates and shakes it even to the sudden brimming of the eyes with tears. “Yes, it is sad,” he says, “to see the flowers dying, and the leaves falling, and the harvest over. It is sad—not a little sad—still, cheer up, cheer up; have a good heart. God has told me, and my little warm heart knows, that it is not all sad. I know it is not. I can’t tell why. But it can’t be all sad; for God sent me to sing in the Autumn days. He taught me my song, and I know that there is a great deal in it about peace and joy. And it must be right; for though my nest is choked up, and my little ones are flown, and my mate has left me, I can’t help singing it. Cheer up. It is sad, but not all sad. Peace and joy—joy and peace.”
“The morning mist is cleared away,
Yet still the face of heaven is grey,
Nor yet th’ autumnal breeze has stirred the grove,
Faded, yet full, a paler green
Skirts soberly the tranquil scene,
The red-breast warbles round this leafy cove.
“Sweet messenger of ‘calm decay,’
Saluting sorrow as you may,
As one still bent to find or make the best,
In thee and in this quiet mead,
The lesson of sweet peace I read,
Rather in all to be resigned than blest.
“Oh cheerful, tender strain! the heart
That duly bears with you its part,
Singing so thankful to the dreary blast,
Though gone and spent its joyous prime,
And on the world’s Autumnal time,
’Mid withered hues and sere, its lot be cast,
“That is the heart for watchman true,
Waiting to see what God will do.”
* * * * *
Let us walk out into the garden. I love an Autumn garden, and I think that at any season of the year a garden is a book in which we may read a great deal about God. On the Sunday evenings, therefore, I like to sit there, under a tree may be, with some peaceful heavenly book, sometimes to read, and sometimes to close over my thumb, and keep just as company while I meditate; and God’s works seem an apt comment on God’s Word, which I have heard or read that day.