[From the Illustrated London News.]
SONG OF THE SEASONS.
BY CHARLES MACKAY.
I HEARD the language of the trees,
In the noons of the early summer;
As the leaves were moved like rippling seas
By the wind—a constant comer.
It came and it went at its wanton will;
And evermore loved to dally,
With branch and flower, from the cope of the hill
To the warm depths of the valley.
The sunlight glow'd; the waters flow'd;
The birds their music chanted,
And the words of the trees on my senses fell—
By a spirit of Beauty haunted:—
Said each to each, in mystic speech:—
"The skies our branches nourish;—
The world is good,—the world is fair,—
Let us enjoy and flourish!"
Again I heard the steadfast trees;
The wintry winds were blowing;
There seem'd a roar as of stormy seas,
And of ships to the depths down-going
And ever a moan through the woods were blown,
As the branches snapp'd asunder,
And the long boughs swung like the frantic arms
Of a crowd in affright and wonder.
Heavily rattled the driving hail!
And storm and flood combining,
Laid bare the roots of mighty oaks
Under the shingle twining.
Said tree to tree, "These tempests free
Our sap and strength shall nourish;
Though the world be hard, though the world be cold,
We can endure and flourish!"
[From Eliza Cook's Journal.]
THE WANE OF THE YEAR.
BUT autumn wanes, and with it fade the golden tints, and burning hues, and the warm breezes; for winter, with chilling clasp and frosty breath, hurries like a destroyer over the fields to bury their beauties in his snow, and to blanch and wither up with his frozen breath, the remnants of the blooming year. The harvests are gathered, the seeds are sown, the meadow becomes once more green and velvet-like as in the days of spring: the weeds and flowers run to seed, and stand laden with cups, and urns, and bells, each containing the unborn germs of another summer's beauty, and only waiting for the winter winds to scatter them, and the spring sunshine to fall upon them, where they fall to break into bud and leaf and flower, and to whisper to the passing wind that the soul of beauty dies not. It is now upon the waning of the sunshine and the falling of the leaf that the bleak winds rise angrily, and the gloom of the dying year deepens in the woods and fields. We hear the plying of the constant flail mingling with the clatter of the farm-yard; we are visited by fogs and moving mists, and heavy rains that last for days together; upon the hill the horn of the hunter is heard, and in the mountain solitudes the eagle's scream; up among craggy rifts the red deer bound, and the waterfall keeps up its peals of thunder; and although the autumn, having ripened the fruits of summer, and gathered into the garnery the yellow fruitage of the field, must hie away to sunbright shores and islands in the glittering seas of fairy lands, she leaves the spirits of the flowers to hover hither and thither amid the leafless bowers to bewail in midnight dirges the loss of leaves and blossoms and the joyful tide of song. It is one of these of whom the poet speaks; for he, having been caught up by the divine ether into the regions of eternal beauty, has seen, as mortals seldom see, the shadows of created things, and has spoken with the angel spirits of the world:—
A spirit haunts the year's last hours,
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers;
To himself he talks:
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh.
In the walks
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers,
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly,
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.
The air is damp, and hush'd and close,
As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
An hour before death;
My very heart faints, and my whole soul grieves,
At the rich moist smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year's last rose.
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly,
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.—Tennyson.