Sweet Autumn! thou’rt surrounded with the charms
Of reason, and philosophy, and truth,
And ev’ry “sound reflection” that disarms
This life of half its terrors:—in our youth
We feel no sense of danger, and the qualms
Of conscience seldom trouble us forsooth,
Because the splendour of its reign destroys
Whatever checks our sublunary joys?
But thou art far too rigid and severe
To let these errors triumph for a day,
Or suffer folly, in her mad career,
To sweep our reas’ning faculties away!
Thou pointest out the fun’ral of the year,
The summer’s wreck and palpable decay,
Stamping a “moral lesson” on the mind,
To awe, restrain, and meliorate mankind!
But men are callous to thy warning voice,
And pass thee by, regardless of thy worth,
Making a false and perishable choice
Of all the fleeting pleasures of the earth:
They love gross riot, turbulence, and noise,
The Bacchanalian’s ebriating mirth,
And when the autumn of their lives creeps on,
Their wit has vanish’d, and their strength is gone!
But had they been observant of thy pow’rs,
And ponder’d o’er thy ruin and decay,
They might have well applied them to those hours
Which nothing, for an instant, can delay;
But whilst health, strength, and competence are our’s,
And youth is basking in the summer’s ray,
Life’s autumn scenes reluctantly are view’d,
And folly’s visions joyously pursued!
B. W. R.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 58·02.
[347] Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar.