There are those who shudder at the approach of Autumn, and who feel a light grief stealing over their spirits, like an October haze, as the evening shadows slant sooner, and longer, over the face of an ending August day.

But is not Autumn the Manhood of the year? Is it not the ripest of the seasons? Do not proud flowers blossom,—the golden-rod, the orchis, the dahlia, and the bloody cardinal of the swamp-lands?

The fruits too are golden, hanging heavy from the tasked trees. The fields of maize show weeping spindles, and broad rustling leaves, and ears half glowing with the crowded corn; the September wind whistles over their thick-set ranks with whispers of plenty. The staggering stalks of the buckwheat grow red with ripeness, and tip their tops with clustering tricornered kernels.

The cattle, loosed from the summer's yoke, grow strong upon the meadows new-starting from the scythe. The lambs of April, rounded into fulness of limb, and gaining day by day their woolly cloak, bite at the nodding clover-heads; or, with their noses to the ground, they stand in solemn, circular conclave under the pasture oaks, while the noon-sun beats with the lingering passion of July.

The Bob-o'-Lincolns have come back from their Southern rambles among the rice, all speckled with gray; and, singing no longer as they did in spring, they quietly feed upon the ripened reeds that straggle along the borders of the walls. The larks, with their black and yellow breastplates, and lifted heads, stand tall upon the close-mown meadow, and at your first motion of approach spring up, and soar away, and light again, and with their lifted heads renew the watch. The quails, in half-grown coveys, saunter hidden through the underbrush that skirts the wood, and only when you are close upon them, whir away, and drop scattered under the coverts of the forest.

The robins, long ago deserting the garden neighborhood, feed at eventide in flocks upon the bloody berries of the sumac; and the soft-eyed pigeons dispute possession of the feast. The squirrels chatter at sunrise, and gnaw off the full-grown burrs of the chestnuts. The lazy blackbirds skip after the loitering cow, watchful of the crickets that her slow steps start to danger. The crows in companies caw aloft, and hang high over the carcass of some slaughtered sheep lying ragged upon the hills.

The ash-trees grow crimson in color, and lose their summer life in great gouts of blood. The birches touch their frail spray with yellow; the chestnuts drop down their leaves in brown, twirling showers. The beeches, crimped with the frost, guard their foliage until each leaf whistles white in the November gales. The bittersweet hangs its bare and leafless tendrils from rock to tree, and sways with the weight of its brazen berries. The sturdy oaks, unyielding to the winds and to the frosts, struggle long against the approaches of the winter, and in their struggles wear faces of orange, of scarlet, of crimson, and of brown; and finally, yielding to swift winds, as youth's pride yields to manly duty, strew the ground with the scattered glories of their summer strength, and warm and feed the earth with the dÉbris of their leafy honors.

The maple in the lowlands turns suddenly its silvery greenness into orange scarlet, and in the coming chilliness of the autumn eventide seems to catch the glories of the sunset, and to wear them—as a sign of God's old promise in Egypt—like a pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night.

And when all these are done,—and in the paved and noisy aisles of the city the ailantus, with all its greenness gone, lifts up its skeleton fingers to the God of Autumn and of storms,—the dogwood still guards its crown; and the branches, which stretched their white canvas in April, now bear up a spire of bloody tongues, that lie against the leafless woods like a tree on fire!

Autumn brings to the home the cheerful glow of "first fires." It withdraws the thoughts from the wide and joyous landscape of summer, and fixes them upon those objects which bloom and rejoice within the household. The old hearth, that has rioted the summer through with boughs and blossoms, gives up its withered tenantry. The fire-dogs gleam kindly upon the evening hours; and the blaze wakens those sweet hopes and prayers which cluster around the fireside of home.

The wantoning and the riot of the season gone are softened in memory, and supply joys to the season to come,—just as youth's audacity and pride give a glow to the recollections of our manhood.

At mid-day the air is mild and soft; a warm, blue smoke lies in the mountain gaps; the tracery of distant woods upon the upland hangs in the haze with a dreamy gorgeousness of coloring. The river runs low with August drought, and frets upon the pebbly bottom with a soft, low murmur, as of joyousness gone by. The hemlocks of the river-bank rise in tapering sheens, and tell tales of Spring.

As the sun sinks, doubling his disk in the October smoke, the low south-wind creeps over the withered tree-tops, and drips the leaves upon the land. The windows, that were wide open at noon, are closed; and a bright blaze—to drive off the easterly dampness that promises a storm—flashes lightly and kindly over the book-shelves and busts upon my wall.

As the sun sinks lower and lower, his red beams die in a sea of great gray clouds. Slowly and quietly they creep up over the night-sky. Venus is shrouded. The western stars blink faintly, then fade in the mounting vapors. The vane points east of south. The constellations in the zenith struggle to be seen, but presently give over, and hide their shining.

By late lamp-light the sky is all gray and dark; the vane has turned two points nearer east. The clouds spit fine rain-drops, that you only feel with your face turned to the heavens. But soon they grow thicker and heavier; and as I sit, watching the blaze, and—dreaming—they patter thick and fast under the driving wind upon the window, like the swift tread of an army of Men!