109.--THE CLOSE OF AUTUMN.

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.

Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the wither'd 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 sprung 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 November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the yiolèt, they perish'd long ago, And the brier-rose, and the orchis died, amid the summer's

glow;

But on the hill the golden rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sunflower 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 hazy light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,

And 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 forest cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a lot 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, BRYANT.

110.--THE CORAL GROVE.

DEEP in the wave is a coral grove,

Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with falling dew,
But in bright and changeful beauty shine
Far down in the green and grassy brine.
The floor is of sand like the mountain drift,
And the pearl shells spangle the flinty snow:
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift

Their bows where the tides and billows flow;
The water is calm and still below,

For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air;
There with its waving blade of green,
The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter;
There with a light and easy motion,

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea;
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,

And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the wave his own :
And when the ship from his fury flies,
Where the myriad voices of ocean roar,
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore:
Then far below, in the peaceful sea,
The purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the waters murmur tranquilly

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.

PERCIVAL.

111. LORD BYRON'S LAST VERSES.

“ Missolonghi, Jan. 23, 1824.

"On this day I completed my thirty-sixth year.”

"Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it has ceased to move;
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love.

My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of love are gone,
The worm, the canker, and the grief;
Are mine alone:

But 'tis not here-it is not here

Such thoughts should shake my soul; nor nowWhere glory seals the hero's bier,

Or binds his brow.

The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece around us see;
The Spartan borne upon his shield
Was not more free.

Awake! not Greece-she is awake!
Awake, my spirit,-think through whom
My life-blood tastes its parent lake—
And then strike home!

I tread reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood-unto thee,
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.

If thou regret thy youth,-why live?
The land of honourable death
Is here-up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!

Seek out-less often sought than found—
A soldier's grave, for thee the best,
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.

BYRON.

112. THE BUGLE.

But still the dingle's hollow throat
Prolong'd the swelling bugle note,
The owlets started from their dream,
The eagles answer'd with their scream;
Round and around the sounds were cast,
Till echo seem'd an answering blast.

O! WILD enchanting horn!

Lady of the Lake.

Whose music up the deep and dewy air
Swells to the clouds, and calls on echo there,
Till a new melody is born.

Wake, wake again, the night

Is bending from her throne of beauty down,
With still stars burning on her azure crown,
Intense, and eloquently bright.

Night, at its pulseless noon!

When the far voice of waters mourns in song,
And some tired watch-dog, lazily and long,
Barks at the melancholy moon.

Hark! how it sweeps away,
Soaring and dying on the silent sky,

As if some sprite of sound went wandering by,
With lone halloo and roundelay!

Swell, swell in glory out!

Thy tones come pouring on my leaping heart,
And my stirr'd spirit hears thee with a start,
As boyhood's old remember'd shout.

O! have ye heard that peal,

From sleeping city's moon-bathed battlements,
Or from the guarded field and warrior tents,
Like some near breath around you steal?

Or have ye in the roar

Of sea, or storm, or battle, heard it rise,
Shriller than eagle's clamour, to the skies,
Where wings and tempests never soar?

Go, go-no other sound,

No music that of air or earth is born,
Can match the mighty music of that horn,
On midnight's fathomless profound!

MELLEN.

113. A HEALTH.

I FILL this cup to one made up of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex the seeming paragon;

To whom the better elements and kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air, 'tis less of earth than

heaven.

Her every tone is music's own, like those of morning birds, And something more than melody dwells ever in her words; The coinage of her heart are they, and from her lips each

flows

As one may see the burden'd bee forth issue from the rose