THERE'S a beautiful Artist abroad in the world,

And her pencil is dipped in heaven,—

The gorgeous hues of Italian skies,

The radiant sunset's richest dyes,

The light of Aurora's laughing eyes,

Are each to her pictures given.

As I walked abroad yestere'en, what time

The sunset was fairest to see,

There was red of every possible hue,

There was yellow of every dye,

From the faintest straw-tint to orange bright,

Fluttering, waving, flashing in light,

With the delicate green leaves still in sight,

Peeping out at the sunset sky.

She had touched the beech, and the scraggy thing

In a bright new suit was dressed;

Very queer, indeed, it looked to me,

The sober old beech tree thus to see,

So different from what he used to be,

Rigged out in a holiday vest.

Red, and russet, and green, and grey—

He had little indeed of gold—

For the beech was never known to be gay,

Being noted a very grave tree alway,

Never flaunting out in a fanciful way

Like other trees, we are told.

But the beautiful artist had touched him off

With an extra tint or so;

And he held his own very well with the rest,

On which, I am sure, she had done her best,

Dressing each in the fairest kind of a vest,

Till the forest was all aglow.

There were the willow that grew by the brook,

And the old oak on the hill,

The graceful elm tree down in the swale,

The birch, the ash, and the bass-wood pale,

The orchard trees clustering over the vale,

And weeds that fringed the rill.

One she had gilt with a flood of gold,

And one she had tipped with flame;

One, she had dashed with every hue

That the laughing sunset ever knew,

And one—she had colored it through and through

Russet, all sober and tame.

Now this beautiful artist will only stay

A very few days, and then

She will finish her gorgeous pictures all,

And hurry away ere the gusty squall

Ruins her work, and the sere leaves fall

Darkly in copse and glen.