A NOVEMBER SCENE.

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SONNET TO WINTER.

HE mellow year is hasting to its close.
The little birds have almost sung their last;
Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast—
That shrill-piped harbinger of early snows.
The patient beauty of the scentless rose,
Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed,
Hangs, a pale mourner for the Summer past,
And makes a little Summer where it grows.
In the chill sunbeam of the faint, brief day
The dusky waters shudder as they shine;
The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way
Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define;
And the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array,
Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy twine.

A NOVEMBER SCENE.

SAW the woods and fields at close of day
A variegated show; the meadows green,
Though faded, and the lands, where lately waved
The golden harvest, of a mellow brown,
Upturned so lately by the peaceful share.
I saw, far off, the weedy fallow smile
With verdure not unprofitable, grazed,
By flocks, fast feeding, and selecting each
His favourite herb; while all the leafless groves

That skirt the horizon, wore a sable hue,
Scarce noticed in the kindred dusk of eve.
To-morrow brings a change, a total change,
Which even now, though silently performed,
And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face
Of universal Nature undergoes.

Fast falls the fleecy shower; the downy flakes
Descending, and with never-ceasing lapse,
Softly alighting upon all below,

Assimilate all objects. Earth receives
Gladly the thickening mantle, and the green
And tender blade, that feared the chilling blast,
Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil.

WINTER MUSIC.

HE poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge, about the new-mown mead :
That is the grasshopper's-he takes the lead
In summer luxury-he has never done
With his delights, for when tired out with fun

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost.

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills

The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,

And seems, to one in drowsiness half lost,

The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

THE CHRYSANTHEMUM.

AST smile of the departing year,
Thy sister sweets are flown!
Thy pensive wreath is far more dear
For blooming thus alone!

Thy tender blush, thy simple frame,
Unnoticed might be past;

But now thou com'st, with softer claim,
The loveliest and the last.

Sweet are the charms in thee we find,
Emblem of Hope's gay wing;

'Tis thine to call past bloom to mind,
To promise future Spring.

HYMN FOR NOVEMBER.

"Who shall change our vile body, that it might be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.”—Philippians iii. 21.

ED o'er the forest peers the setting sun,

The line of yellow light dies fast away

That crowned the eastern copse: and chill and dun
Falls on the moor the brief November day.

Now the tired hunter winds a parting note,

And Echo bids good-night from every glade!
Yet wait awhile, and see the calm leaves float

Each to his rest beneath their parent shade.

HYMN FOR NOVEMBER.

How like decaying life they seem to glide!

And yet no second Spring have they in store, But where they fall, forgotten, to abide

Is all their portion, and they ask no more.

Soon o'er their heads blithe April airs shall sing,
A thousand wild-flowers round them shall unfold,
The green buds glisten in the dews of Spring,
And all be vernal rapture as of old.

Unconscious they in waste oblivion lie,

In all the world of busy life around
No thought of them; in all the bounteous sky
No drop, for them, of kindly influence found.

Man's portion is to die and rise again

Yet he complains, while these unmurmuring part With their sweet lives, as pure from sin and stain, As his when Eden held his virgin heart.

And haply half unblamed his murmuring voice
Might sound in Heaven, were all his second life
Only the first renewed-the heathen's choice,
A round of listless joy and weary strife.

Heavy and dull this frame of limbs and heart,

Whether slow creeping on cold earth, or borne On lofty steed, or loftier prow, we dart

O'er wave or field: yet breezes laugh to scorn

Our puny speed, and birds, and clouds in Heaven,
And fish, like living shafts that pierce the main,
And stars that shoot through freezing air at even-

Who but would follow, might he break his chain?

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