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THE POETRY OF EVENING.

ASCENDING in the scale of poetical interest, the seasons might not improperly occupy the next place in our regard, had they not already been especially the theme of one of our ablest poets. To describe the feelings which the seasons, in their constant revolutions, are calculated to excite, would therefore only be to recapitulate the language and insult the memory of Thomson. There is one circumstance, however, connected with this subject, which demands a moment's attention here. It is the preference for certain seasons of the year evinced by different persons, according to the tone or temperament of their own minds. There are many tests by which human character may be tried. In answering the simple

question, "which is your favourite season?" we often betray more than we are aware of at the time, of the nature of our own feelings and character. It is no stretch of imagination to believe, certainly no misstatement of fact to say, that the young and the innocent (or the good, who resemble both) almost invariably make choice of spring as their favourite season of the year; while the naturally morbid and melancholy, or those who have made themselves so by the misuse of their best faculties, as invariably choose autumn. Why so few make choice of summer is not easy to say, unless the oppressive sense of heat is too powerful in its influence upon the body to allow the mind to receive any deeply pleasurable sensations, or because during the summer there is such a constant springing up of beauty, such an unceasing supply of vigour in the animal and vegetable world, that our ideas of spring are carried on until the commencement of autumn. There are a still smaller number of individuals who venture to say they love the dark days of winter, because, in order to find our greatest enjoyment in this season, we must possess a fund of almost uninterrupted domestic happiness, and few there are who can boast of this inestimable blessing;

few indeed who, when thrown entirely upon the resources which their own hearts, their own homes, or their own families afford, do not sometimes wish to escape, if only to enjoy the refreshment of green fields, free air, and sunny skies.

The good and the happy, the young and the innocent, whose hearts are full of hope, find peculiar gratification in the rich promise of spring, in the growth and perfection of plants, the rejoicing of the animal creation, and the renovated beauty of universal nature. There is within themselves a kind of sympathy, by which they become a part of the harmonious whole, a grateful trust which accords with this promise, a springing up and growth of joyful expectation, which keeps pace with the general progress of the natural world, and echoes back a soul-felt response to the voice which tells of happiness.

How different in all, except their power over the feelings, are the sympathies which are called forth by the contemplation of autumn! The beauty, or rather the bloom of nature, is then. passing away, and the gorgeous and splendid hues which not unfrequently adorn the landscape remind us too forcibly of that mournful

hectic which is known to be a fatal precursor of decay. Every thing fades around us like our own hopes; summer with her sprightliness has left us, like the friends of our youth; while winter, cold winter, comes apace; alas! too like the chilling prospect that lies before us in the path of life. Thus imagination multiplies our gloomy associations, and renders autumn the season best beloved by the morbid and cheerless, for very sympathy with its tendency to

fade.

He who knew, perhaps better than any other man, the depth and the intensity of the mind's worst malady, tells us that—

"The glance of melancholy is a fearful gift;"

and fearful indeed is that insatiable appropriation to her own gloomy purposes with which melancholy endows her victims. Fearful would it be to read and sinful to write, how melancholy can distort the fairest picture, extract bitterness from all things sweet and lovely, darkness from light, and anguish-unmitigable anguish-from what was beneficently intended to beautify and to bless.

Each day also has its associations, so nearly resembling those of the seasons, that it will not

be necessary to examine in their separate characters the natural divisions of morning, noon, evening, and night. But evening, as being universally allowed to be highly poetical, may justly claim a large share of our attention.

Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad."

These words occur immediately to every poetical mind on the first consideration of this solemn and lovely hour. Indeed they occur so familiarly, that if it were possible they could lose their charm, it would already have been destroyed by frequency of repetition. But these two lines contain within themselves a volume of poetic feeling, that will live imperishable and unimpaired, so long as the human mind shall retain its highest and purest conceptions of the nature of real poetry. The very words have a resemblance to the general lull of nature, gently sinking into the silence of night-" Now came still evening on;"" twilight grey" presents us with more than a picture-with a feeling a distinct perception of thin shadows, and white mists gradually blending together; and the last line completely embodies in a few simple words, our ideas of the all-pervading