AUTUMN.

Sweet Summer, with her flowers, has past,

I hear her parting knell;

I hear the moaning, fitful blast,

Sighing a sad farewell.

But, while she fades and dies away,

In rainbow hues she glows;

Like the last smile of parting day,

Still brightening as she goes.

The robin whistles clear and shrill;

Sad is the cricket's song;

The wind, wild rushing o'er the hill,

Bears the dead leaf along.

I love this sober, solemn time,

This twilight of the year;

To me, sweet Spring, in all her prime,

Was never half so dear.

While death has set his changing seal

On all that meets the eye,

‘ Tis rapture, then, within to feel

The soul that cannot die;—

To look far, far beyond this sky,

To Him who changes never.

This earth, these heavens, shall change and die;

God is the same for ever.