The American Library of Art, Literature and Song

OCTOBER TWILIGHT.

H, mute among the months, October, thou,

Like a hot reaper when the

sun goes down,

Up from the valley; overlapping hills, Tipped by the sunset, burn like funerallamps

For the dead day; no pomp of tinsel clouds

Reposing in the twilight of Breaks the pure hyaline the mountains

the year,

thy scythe

gird

Is yon the silver glitter of A gem without a flaw-but, sharply drawn
On its transparent edge, a single tree
That has cast down its drapery of leaves,
Stands like an athlete with broad arms out-

Drawn threadlike on the west?

September comes
Humming those waifs of

June's choral days
Left in the forest, but thy tuneless lips

song

Breathe only a pervading haze that seems
Visible silence, and thy Sabbath face
Scares swart November, from yon northern
hills

Foreboding like a raven.

Yellow ferns

Make thee a couch; thou sittest listless there,

Plucking red leaves for idleness; full streams Coil to thy feet, where fawns that come at

noon

Drink with upglancing eyes.

Upon this knoll, Studded with long-stemmed maples, ever first

To take the breeze, I have lain summer hours,

Seeing the blue sky only, and the light Shifting from leaf to leaf. Tree-top and trunk

Now lift so steadily, the airiest spray

Seems painted on the azure. Evening comes

stretched,

As if to keep November's winds at bay. Below, on poisèd wings, a hovering mist Follows the course of streams; the air grows thick

Over the dells. Mark how the wind, like

one

That gathers simples, flits from herb to herb. Through the damp valley, muttering the while

Low incantations. From the wooded lanes
Loiters a bell's dull tinkle, keeping time
To the slow tread of kine, and I can see
By the rude trough the waters overbrim.
The unyoked oxen gathered; some, athirst,
Stoop drinking steadily, and some have
linked

Their horns in playful war. Roads climb the hills,

Divide the forests and break off, abrupt,
At the horizon; hither, from below,
There comes a sound of lumbering, jarring
wheels:

The sound just struggles up the steep ascent,
Then drones off in the distance. Nearer still,

A rifle's rattling charge starts up the echoes, | Flow, hidden tears, and, sorrows deep, atone, For that dear past is dead whom grief

That flutter like scared birds and pause a

graves,

Along those swelling mounds that look like Hymn it round our souls; according harps, By angel-fingers touched when the mild stars Where flowers grow thick in June, thy step Of morning sang together, sound forth still falls soft

As the dropt leaves; amid the faded brakes

The wind, retreating, hides, and, cowering there,

Whines at thy coming like a hound afraid.

EDITH MAY.

THE GRAVE OF LOVE.

The song of our great immortality;
Thick-clustering orbs and this our fair do-

main,

The tall, dark mountains and the deep-toned

seas,

Join in this solemn, universal song.

Oh, listen, ye our spirits! drink it in
From all the air! 'Tis in the gentle moon-
light;

I STAND between two lives-a life that's "Tis floating in day's setting glories; Night,