September 21.
The Season.
Swallows and martins are still very numerous, the general migration not having begun. They roost in immense numbers on buildings, round about which martins fly some times in such quantities as almost to darken the air with their plumes. Sparrows, linnets, various finches, and also plovers, are now seen about in flocks, according to an annual habit, prevalent among many kinds of birds, of assembling together in autumn.[347]
The accompanying stanzas applicable to the season, are extracted from an original poem, entitled “The Libertine of the Emerald Isle,” which will, probably, be published early in the next year.
Autumn.
For the Every-Day Book.
The leaves are falling, and the hollow breeze
At ev’ning tide sweeps mournfully along,
Making sad music, such as minor keys
Develope in a melancholy song:
The meadows, too, are losing by degrees
Their green habiliments—and now among
The various works of nature there appears
A gen’ral gloom, prophetic of the year’s
Approaching dissolution:—but to me
These sombre traits are pregnant with delight,
And yield my soul more true felicity
Than words can justly picture:—they invite
My mind to contemplation—they agree
With my heart’s bias, and at once excite
Those feelings, both of love and admiration,
Which make this world a glorious revelation!
Hence—not unfrequently when all is still,
And Cynthia walks serenely through the sky,
Silv’ring the groves and ev’ry neighb’ring hill,
I sit and ponder on the years gone by:
This is the time when reason has her fill
Of this world’s good and evil, when the eye
Of contemplation takes a boundless range
Of spheres that never vacillate or change!