Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1852-11-26


"Hark! through the dim woods dying
With = mean,
Family the winds ar. signing;
Summer q gone!"
Charles Wilcox thus gives expression tt
a thought to which many can yield assent
g. The sultry summer past, September comes,
Soft twilight Of the slow declining yenr,
More sober than the buxou blooming May,
And therefore less the favorite Of the world;
But dearest month If au TO pcnsire minds"
Think with what pensiveness, approach
ing almost to melancholy, Brainard would
tread the path, along which his mind woult
weave the following:
The desd leaves strew the forest walk
And witherei the pne Wild howers;
The frost hangs black'nng the stalk,
The dew-lrops fall in froxe showers"
Kirkc White had a Gnel strung nature
which thrilled sensitively to every voice oi
the outward world. He had an ear for tht
wild and the melancholy, and an eye 70,
the sublime and the terrible Alas tha
genius must have its victims. How die
he fall like a leaf untimely, not frosted by
the breath of autumn, but wilted by the
gnawing of worm at the stalk. Heal
how autumn speaks to him:
I'm hollow music signing through the glade
The hreeze of autumn strikes the startled ear,
And fancy. pacing through the ooiland shade,
Hears In the gust the requiem Of the year"
And again:
Not undelish shtful to the listening ear
Sound thy dull showers. a DER my WOODLAND srat,
Dismal. and drcar, the leaf-ss trees they beat;
>ot unieit .h,ftil. their wild
Is the wild N mI,c of thy howiing bats,
sweeping the groves long aisle. while su,en Time
Thy st 'rn mantle Ger his shoulder casts,
And rocHed upon his throne, with chant sublime,
joins the full peang drse, and winter wesves
Her dark sepulchral wreath of faded leaves
The "Closipg Scene" by Thomas Buch
anan Read, was pronounced by the Nortl
British Review to be unquestionably tht
"best American poem" it had met with
Its merits are certainly Of high order
We have seen no finer description of au
tumu. Here is part Of it:
d" Within the sober realm Of lcafiess tree.
The russet year inhaled the dreamy air:
Like some isnn'- reaper in his hour Of eaac
When all the fields are lying brown and bare.
Tie gray barns looking from The hsyy hills
Der the liIn waters, widening in III" wales,
S~nt down The air greeting 10 the miss,
ON the dull thunder Of alternate tails
All sights were mellpw"d. and al sounds suhiuei.
The hills sccm"i farther .nd the stream, sang lew;
A. in drrani. the distant wopdman h.wed
His winter los with many muiiied blow.
The en.haitl~l for. ste. rrcwl. nrnrl with gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue,
Now stood like some tcaton host of old
Withdrawn afar in Times remo,e,t blue.
On sumbcrous wings the vulture tried hi. fight:
he dove scarce heard his si:lng mates complaint,
y n.
The village ohurch-yan. uied To pale aud faint.
The sentinel cock upon the hillside crew
Crew ttric", and all Wxs stiller than before
Silent till snm" rsPy'ns ~sr'-r blew
His alien horn, and then was heard no more.
Where. erst. the jay within the eims tall crest
Maize grrruiou- trouble round her unfeiged young;
And when the oriolc hung her swaying nest,
by every light wind like q censer swung:
Who're sang the noisy masons of the caves,
The busy swallows circlins ever near,
Forehotiing : the rustic mini believes,
An carly harvest and pienteous year;
Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast,
Shock the sweet slumber from its wings at morn,
To warn the rrarers Of the rosy east
All now was song!ess, empty and forlorn.
Alone. from ont the stubble piped the quail.
And rroskei the crow, through all the dreamy gloom
Alon" the pheasant drumming in the vale,
Made echo TO the distant cottage loom.
There was no bud. bloom upon the bowers:
The spiders ~ove their thin shrouds light by night,
The thiste-iown, the only ghost Of flowers
Sailed slowly by-passed noseiess out of sight"
We may add another scrap from the
same author, which some of US may have
occasion to think of before many nights
Allow and aloof
Over the roof
How the tempest- swell and roari
Though no foot il sstir.
Though the cat and the cur
Lie dozing along the kitchen door,
There feet of air
On every stair!
Through every hall
Throus 81 each gu-ty door.
There's a iostle and hustle,
With 4 silken rustic,
Like the meeting Of guests at a festivali
allow and soof
Over the roof.
How the stormy temIests swell!
And make the vans
On the spire complain
They hsave at the steepe with might and main;
And burst and sweep
Into the belfiey the bell
They smite il so hard, and they smite IL % we'll,
That the sexton tosses his arms in sleep,
And dreams he is ringing funeral kneli!'
But autumn is suggestive Of other tho'ts
than these. If it has fading leaves and
stormy winds, it has golden sunsets, and
laden orchards, and gildcd landscapes.
There is cheerful, as we'll as dirge-like po'
etry of autumn. 1t suggests gorgeous
imagery as we'll as r'aintive wailing,. We
have heard current tradition that the
Rev. Mr.. Wadsworth, in sermon described
the autumn woods, by saying that the
colors of the rainbow had come down upon
tho leaves. Here is sonnet by Longfcl