Miscellania [pp. 358-359]

353 MIS CELLANIA.
MISCELLANIA.
BY PROFESSOR LARRBABEE.
AUTUMN.
SUMMF.R is gone, and Autumn is throwing her
sober drapery over nature. The early frost has
touched the maple with its crimson pencil. The
leaves of the beech look brown. The locust-leaves
are falling along the foot-path. The ripe and mellow apple is dropping from its parent branch, and
the ripened corn hangs earthward from its stock.
The summer flowers are all gone. On the hill, and
in the valley, I find nothing of bloom, but the
bright golden rod, and the purple aster. I miss the
flowers that all summer have bloomed along my
path, and shed their fragrance about my solitary
study. I miss the summer birds, that built their
nests among the trees of Rosabower, and sang to
me morning, noon, and evening, in gentle and
plaintive tones, chiming in harmony with my own
pensive emotions. The birds that passed along in
spring, and tarried with us a day, are come back
again. The very same little sparrow, that came
along in the spring, and sung for a day on the
cedar-bush by my side, seems to have returned
again on her southern migration. She has been
north, perhaps to build her nest in the evergreen
bower endeared to my heart by the recollections of
childhood. Poor bird! she is alone, and the tones
of her song seem unusually plaintive. I fear some
naughty boy has shot her mate, and some voracious hawk pounced on her little ones. Bring you
tidings, sweet bird, from my native bower? Flows
the brook by as cheerful, bloom the flowers as beautiful, shines the sun as mild, and are the firs as
green, as in the joyous and halcyon days of yore?
Hast thou sung a requiem over the grave of some
dear friend of mine-the friend of early days-the
ever true, and reliable, and unchanging friend-the
same in age as in youth, the same in adversity as
in prosperity, the same absent as present? Is thy
subdued and plaintive note, so congenial to my
heart, designed to betoken bereavement? Leave
me not yet, little bird. I will harm you not. Sing
to me awhile, then go your way, trusting in Providence. When again you go to the north, to spend
the summer, sing for me one song from the pine,
that, years ago, I planted over the grave of the
gentle-spirited and affectionate one, who led me by
the hand in tottering childhood, and, by her counsel, protected my youthful heart from vicious influences. Pass on now, little bird, pass on to a milder
clime; and may He, without whose notice no " sparrow falls," protect thee from harm!
Sad are the remembrances which this autumn
brings to many a heart. The summer has been
beautiful, gorgeously beautiful; the skies have been
clear, the atmosphere temperate, and the fields
green; but sickness has fallen, like a blight, over all
the west, and death has swept many thousands to
the grave. Strange is it that the fairest climes
should be the most fatal to human life, and the
most bland breezes the most deadly. Who would
expect sickness and death to be floating on the
mild and gentle zephyr that breathes so softly over
the fair landscapes of the west? Yet the wail of
woe has gone up from many a home, as one after
another of the household has fallen a victim to the
insidious destroyer.
Autumn reminds us of the changes which time
has wrought on objects of the dearest interest to our
hearts. What is the lesson which the incessant
changes of earth are designed to teach us? Is it
the design of Providence to attract our affections
away from earth to heaven? It may be so. How
hard it is to cease to love, even after the object of
love is removed for ever away. Alas! who that has
felt can describe the power of human affection? In
the buoyancy of youth, while the heart is versatile,
and new objects of interest are ever presenting
themselves, we feel but slightly the effects of earth's
changes. Bereavement, if it fall upon us, seldom
affects us so deeply as in maturer life. But, when
gray hairs creep over our temples, and the renewing powers of life and of the affections grow less
active, we feel more keenly and more permanently
the pain of sundering the ties that bind the heart
to the objects of love. And it seems strange, too,
that in mature life the memory of objects of endearment, that lived and died long ago, returns to us
with saddening vividness. It is not true that time
heals the wounds that sorrow makes in the heart:
at least, it is not true of all. The memory of the
loved and the lost will rush upon us in spite of all
the guards we throw around us. Pictures of beings
animate and inanimate will revive, even after we
suppose time must have effaced every lineament,
and dimmed every color. There gathers around us,
at last, an oppressive accumulation of sad remembrances. The old apple tree on the hillside, beneath whose fruitful branches, in childhood, we
played, now decayed and removed; the grand old
elm before the door, now fallen by the axe of some
vandal clown; the pine, transplanted by our own
hands from the woods to the garden, now branchless and prostrate; the evergreen bower, where, in
childhood, we kneeled before God in solitary devotion, now swept over by fire, or occupied by a
cornfield; the house-our home in infancy-now
torn down, and every vestige removed; the little
brook, that meandered in wild beauty through the
vale, now dammed and arrested, and forced. to carry
a noisy mill; these all return to the chambers of
memory, and utter in the ear of the soul sad and
mournful tones. There are other objects of early
attachment, whose memory sometimes returns in
age: the pet-lamb, the playful kitten, the faithful
dog, and the gentle horse. But with a deeper thrill,
and more overwhelming power, comes back the
memory of the protectors, companions, and friends
of the past. Say you, who were left motherless in
early life, does the memory of the mother fade away
from your soul? Loved one, have you forgotten
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MISCELLANIA.