The study of poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward: it has soothed my afflictions; it has refined and multiplied my enjoyments; it has given me (or at least strengthened in me) the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me—Coleridge.

STANZAS.

It is the Fall! the season now,
Of rustling airs—of fading flowers;
And Nature with a saddened brow,
Sits brooding o'er her leafless bowers.
Yet Autumn's reign was aye to me
A season of felicity!
I'm standing in a dark recess
Of a vast, dim, primeval wood,
And on me is the consciousness
That springs from such a solitude.
No sounds are nigh save those I love—
No scene my heart's content to move.
A streamlet, gushing from above
Goes dancing past me wild and free,
As the fond boy is said to rove,
Commission'd by Love's Deity.
But he in cities gaily flaunts,
While this seeks only nature's haunts.
And as it tracks the forest's maze,
Through greensward alleys wand'ring wide,
Affects not Folly's treach'rous ways,
Nor looks to Fashion for its guide.
How lulling to my sense its song,—
As thus it sweeps its course along!
The winds are also stirring now,
In murm'ring tones, yon stately pine,
Whose giant branches tend to throw
A deeper shadow o'er this shrine—
This nobler shrine than priest or king
Is wont to use for worshipping.
But lo! 'tis sunset—and the dew
Is settling fast on herb and tree;
Darkness will soon be shrouding too
Each object in obscurity.
My steps again I therefore turn,
To mix with man, and inly mourn!

* * *

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

SONNET.

There is a splendour in these southern skies,
Ofttimes at sunset, which I've nowhere seen,
Wide as my range about the world hath been,
Save on Italian shores; and there the dyes
Have less of magic in them!—Who that tries,
(Artist or Bard,) to paint such glowing hues
As, in the west, mine eye this moment views,
But must confess how passing far it lies
Beyond his utmost skill?—High o'er my head
A blue intense fades into purplish gray;
And this anon to richer tints gives way,
Of yellow—orange—then of deepening red,
Until at length, in his all gorgeous bed,
Proudly sinks down the monarch of our day.

* * *