The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-07-07
For the National Era.
MIDNIGHT IN AUTUMN AMONG THE HILLS OF
OHIO

Aho 4uiot cdfbu ulOOuOcdLAS ldlls
So TREMENDOUSLY bright,
They seem like smiles of angels, sent
From Heavens cerulean battlement,
To cheer the realm of night.
The soft wind DER the hillside sweeps,
And up tho glen the gray mist creeps,
Where gides the sparkling rill;
And from afar the night. birds cry
Swells out, beneath the midnight sky,
From the wood-covered hill.
The spangled robes the forests wear
Tell that the frost-wind has been there;
And from the silent trees,
The leaves, which formed their summer crown
Withercd and pale, come Huttering down
Before the itful breeze
The far-of hills, which tower on high,
Spread their green outline 'gainst the sky,
In moonlight beauty dressed
Like lofty walls they seem to stand
Encireling some enchanted land,
Or garden Of the blest.
And do they not-those plains that lie
0utspread beneath the smiling sky,
Far as the eye can roam?
This bright and beautiful expansc,
This gay and rich inheritance,
Is Freedoms happy home.
Unrivalled are the landscapes here,
When Autumn, pageant Of the year,
Leads on the golden hours
And this star ,sF,ssIed ornament
Is beautifai - tSas ylSch bent
Ger xds's NY lowers
outnassehe ~, on every hand,
AAM, grove, and green moor-land,
a sn,l1vated field
- tnmiets, with their walls of white,
- Aded bowers and pale moonlight
Ualf hidden, half revealed.
!. And though the rose has left tbs bower,
The aster and the primrose flower,
And wild helurium still,
Unmindful of the cool night air,
Look forth all beautiful and fair
rrom gurueh, grove anu nlll
The cricket chirrups by the wall
Der which the jessamine tendrils crawl
In gay festoons along
And there the green-winged kstydid,
Among the clustering foliage hid,
Carols her happy song.
Theirs is q blissfal lot, | ween,
Mid fields of bloom and bowers Of green,
To spend life's little day;
And when the leaves and flowers grow dim,
To sing their own wild requiem,
And pass from earth away.
Midnight in Autumn-glorious night
Myriads of stars, serenely bright.
Look down upon the earth
The same effulgent, sparkling throng,
Which raised, Of old their choral song
To hail our planets birth.
They sing the same glad song tonight,
In all the boundless realms Of light
Through which their orbs arc Winfield
The joyous music of the spheres,
Heard nightly by angelic ears,
Above sleeping world
Would men but make the stars their guide
Instead of selfshness and pride,
Their purity and love
Might win for all earth's richest crown,
And WOO the smiles Of angels down,
To bless them, from above.
No thought inspires one twinkling star
In its ethereal course, 10 mar
The grand harmonious whole;
They give, receive, dinuse their light,
As DER the fields Of azure bright
Increasingly they roll.
Gems of the night TO them It's given
To deck the azure brow Of Heaven,
Furnished and poised on high
Oh, for wing to soar away,
Through all those starry realms to stray
And with their orbs to fly
Who could behold them shining now,
Nor turn, with humbled heart, to bow
The reverential knee
To Him who formed yon worlds Of light,
And bids his angels guard, each night,
The slumbers Of the free!
Glen Quist, Colerain, Ohio.