THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. 'HE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the TH year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold Novem ber rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen. And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fra grance late he bore, nd sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf. And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief: Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. New York, 1325. New York Review," November, 1825. A MEDITATION ON RHODE ISLAND COAL. "Decolor, obscurus, vilis, non ille repexam CLAUDIAN. I SAT beside the glowing grate, fresh heaped With Newport coal, and as the flame grew bright -The many-colored flame-and played and leaped, I thought of rainbows, and the northern light, Moore's Lalla Rookh, the Treasury Report, And other brilliant matters of the sort. And last I thought of that fair isle which sent I saw it once, with heat and travel spent, And scratched by dwarf-oaks in the hollow way. Now dragged through sand, now jolted over stoneA rugged road through rugged Tiverton. And hotter grew the air, and hollower grew The deep-worn path, and horror-struck, I thought, Where will this dreary passage lead me to? This long dull road, so narrow, deep, and hot? I looked to see it dive in earth outright; I looked-but saw a far more welcome sight. Like a soft mist upon the evening shore, The barley was just reaped; the heavy sheaves Lay on the stubble-field; the tall maize stood Dark in its summer growth, and shook its leaves, And bright the sunlight played on the young woodFor fifty years ago, the old men say, The Briton hewed their ancient groves away. I saw where fountains freshened the green land, And where the pleasant road, from door to door, With rows of cherry-trees on either hand, Went wandering all that fertile region o'er Rogue's Island once-but when the rogues were dead, Rhode Island was the name it took instead. VOL. I.-II |