“Turn wheresoe’er we may,
By night or day,
The things which we have seen we now can see no more.”
’Tis true that still
“The Rainbow comes and goes,
* * *
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;—
But yet we know, where’er we go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the Earth.”
Let me be permitted to make use of a few more words from the same poem; for by no others can I hope so well to kindle in the reader, that feeling with which I would fain have him possessed, on the advent of this still delightful season of the year, if it be but received and enjoyed in the spirit in which it comes to us.
“What,” then——
“What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from our sight—
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not—rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which, having been, must ever be;
* * * *
In the faith that looks through death;
In thoughts that bring the philosophic mind.”
I cannot choose but continue this strain a little longer; and I suppose my readers will be the last persons to complain of my doing so; it is the poet alone who will have cause to object to his meanings throughout, and in one or two instances his words, being diverted from their original purpose, but I hope not degraded in their application, nor disenchanted of their power.
“And oh! ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Think not of any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might.
* * * *
The innocent brightness of a new-born day
Is lovely yet;
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That watches o’er the Year’s mortality.
* * * *
Thanks to the human heart by which we live;
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears;
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”
Reader, this is said by the greatest poet of our age, and one of the deepest, wisest, and most virtuous of her philosophic sages. And it is said by him even in the sense in which it is here applied, now that it has been once so applied: for much of his words have this in common with those of Shakspeare, that you may turn them to an almost equally apt and good account in many different ways, besides those in which they were at first directed. Let them be received, then, in the spirit in which they are here uttered, and we shall be able and entitled to continue our task, of following the year through its vicissitudes, and still (as we began it) “pursue our course to the end, rejoicing.”
The youth of the year is gone, then. Even the vigour and lustihood of its maturity are quick passing away. It has reached the summit of the hill, and is not only looking, but descending, into the valley below. But, unlike that into which the life of man declines, this is not a vale of tears; still less does it, like that, lead to that inevitable bourne, the Kingdom of the Grave. For though it may be called (I hope without the semblance of profanation) “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” yet of Death itself it knows nothing. No—the year steps onward towards its temporary decay, if not so rejoicingly, even more majestically and gracefully, than it does towards its revivification. And if September is not so bright with promise and so buoyant with hope as May, it is even more embued with that spirit of serene repose, in which the only true, because the only continuous enjoyment consists. Spring “never is, but always to be blest;” but September is the month of consummations—the fulfiller of all promises—the fruition of all hopes—the era of all completeness. Let us then turn at once to gaze on, and partake in, its manifold beauties and blessings, not let them pass us by, with the empty salutation of mere praise; for the only panegyric that is acceptable to Nature is that just appreciation of her gifts which consists in the full enjoyment of them.