The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1869-11-04
Autumn Of the Year.

The /" melancholy days of autumn, the sad
dest Of the year" to some,. and to others of
the sweetest, have come on at last with their
golden hues and fading verdure. And how
brief has been the space since the bright fes-
tival of springtime-when tempest and desc
lation were all forgotten amidst the sweet
songs of birds in their shaded bowers of bliss !!
The chill breath OF nature is imperceptibly
stealing over plant and flowers; the lcaaet
hangs wrestling in the wind, as the green car
peting Of creation is beginning to wear a yell
lowish or motley color-the index of decay.
This season is ever pregnant with refec-
ton; for all around and about us tells of the
perishable nature of the things of earth. To
many who have already passed the Rubicon
of middle life, and whose spirits are depress-
ed by difficulties or broken by unavailing
struggles, it is season of peculiar melancholy
for it warns them that their time. for. action
has passed-that the advent of 1ife's winter
is fast approaching. They look back upon
the bright springtime Of their existence, when
life wore the beauty of promise, ard mourn
fully contrast the joyous past with the .dreary
present. ''@ ''44'"' i'-fA9e 's'.1'.'o -
F To those, too, who are but in life,s prime il
it betimcs sadder TO look upon the fowery
fields of existence through which I have been
rambling, and to contrast them with the track
they now tread, and the desolatc prospect in
perspective Many bright orb Of hope that
Ponce checred them on the pathway Of life
ends fainter beam the horizon Of happi-
ness recedes as they advance towards it; the
shadows will soon begin to lengthen, and the
chill airs Of evening to usurp the fevers Of
noon day. To many the pride Of their youth
has passed away, and so have their fondest
dreams and they feel themselves to be chang
ed, and their faculties Of enjoyment dimin.
shed, and are filled with mixture Of world
| ly scoru and unavailing regret for the lovely
season that has so briefly fitted away from
| them, now never to be recalled.
But autumn, with all its deepening shad-
ows, is not wholly a season Of gloom, even
though the bowling blast and scar leaf do re-
mind us of persisted hopes and coming death
In the fall Of the year, even with its mourn
full decay, there is something which charms
| the soul and sweetens human life; for the
rustic of the changing green, the winds low
SIGH. the creaking door, the house cricle S
prolonged chrp, ard the lit up hearth, send
our thoughts back on an GRAND of memory to
those charming hours and happy days Of youth
and hope-days of childhood, Of innocence
when with many beloved one from whom
we now have parted, we have sat around the
family hearth-stone and partook Of the feel
ings Of other times. There is moral to be
gathered while contemplating the changes OF
nature at the present season Of the year; for
we are apt to extract our thoughts from the
perishable, to turn from earth's ephemeral
| charms to the more sublime beauties which
lie beyond It. In our contemplation the be-
| lief steals upon us that if the vital power j.
continually sustained year after year upon the
face Of the earth, in the grass blade. in the
forest, and the many forms of nature--so alst
! will there come another existence to mans
life, and the frail dust of his mortality vii
assume far brighter and 2urcr shape, beam
mated with new existence, by the same
power that garnishes 50 beautifully the forest
and the flowers.