“Among our autumnal pleasures, we ought not to have omitted the very falling of the leaves:
To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air,
Go eddying round.
C. Lamb.
“Towards the end of the month, under the groves and other shady places, they begin to lie in heaps, and to rustle to the foot of the passenger; and there they will lie till the young leaves are grown overhead, and spring comes to look down upon them with their flowers:—
O Spring! of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness,
Wind-winged emblem! brightest, best, and fairest!
Whence comest thou, when, with dark winter’s sadness,
The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?
Sister of joy, thou art the child who wearest
Thy mother’s dying smile, tender and sweet;
Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest
Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet,
Disturbing not the leaves, which are her winding sheet.”
Shelley.
[377] Verstegan.
[378] Dr. F. Sayer.