DREAMS OF MANHOOD. AUTUMN. HERE are those who shudder at the approach Tof 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 buck-wheat, grow red with ripeness; and tip their tops with clustering, tri-cornered 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 fullness 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 breast-plates, 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 sun-rise, and gnaw off the full-grown burs of the chesnuts. The lazy black-birds 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 carcase 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 chesnuts 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 bitter-sweet hangs its bare, and leaf-less 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 debris of their leafy honors. The maple, in the low-lands, 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— |