WELL--the reign of autumn, for the present year, has come; and there will doubtless be the annual quotations of description in the newspaper market. Some of it will remain on first hands, and the rest will find a ready circulation. Meditation will vent itself upon apostrophe; poetry will be engendered; old songs will be re-sung. It is, in truth, a delicious season, and no one can be blamed for yielding himself up to its influences. When the first yellow surges of September sunlight seem to roll through the atmosphere; when the dust of the city street, as you look at some stately carriage, whose wheels are flashing toward the west, seems rising around them like an atmosphere, colored betwixt the hue of gold and crimson; when the mountains put on their beautiful garments, where tints of the rainbow mingle with the aërial blue of the sky; when the winds have a melancholy music in their tone, and the heaven above us is enrobed in surpassing purity and lustre--_then_, the dwellers in great capitals may perhaps _conceive_ of the richness and fruition of the country; but they cannot approach the reality. The harvest moon has waned; the harvest home been held; the wheat is in the garner; the last peaches hang blushing on the topmost branches where they grew; the fragrant apples lie in fairy-colored mounds beneath the orchard trees, and the cheerful husbandman whistles at the cider-press. As September yields her withered sceptre into the grasp of October, the hills begin to invest themselves in those many-colored robes which are the livery of their new sovereign. As my observant friend, (a well-belovéd Epinetus,) who hath discoursed of matters outre-mer, so richly hymns it, then there comes
A mellow richness on the clustered trees; And, from a beaker full of richest dyes, Pouring new glory on the autumn woods, And dipping in warm light, the pillared clouds, Morn, on the mountain, like a summer bird, Lifts up her purple wing; and in the vales The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life Within the solemn woods of ash deep crimsoned, And silver beech, the maple yellow leaved-- Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down By the way-side a-weary. Through the trees The golden robin moves; the purple finch, That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds, A winter bird comes with its plaintive whistle, And pecks by the witch hazel; while aloud, From cottage roofs, the warbling blue-bird sings.