AUTUMNTIDE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14984, 4 May 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

AUTUMNTIDE.

BY ASCOT. A. BROAD.

When* the long summer days creep in of an evening and the nights turn cold, when men say that winter is coming, then the autumn appears. The season is not otherwise to he regarded, than it should be: the gracious warm-hearted intruder between summer and winter, to herald j another spring.. Autumn is both consider j ate and far-sighted; she steps in, that the I very fulness of life and death may not j clash suddenly. One warm hand, taking j upon it the texture of the lightsome sea- j son to which it is extended, she stretches j to summer; the other cold, but warmly clad, she gives to winter. ! Autumn is thus, in a special • sense, double-handed, hot and cold, inconsistent: yet. consistent in very inconsistency. This. is seen in the special mission of this season, which is .to reconcile two apparently irreconcilable?. This she accomplishes, through expression l *Of sympathy with either, and the imparting of her, secret to both. Hence the hot hand and the cold; but what is her secret It is simply that the trio, summer, autumn, winter, in themselves are. incomplete; that another is lacking to make the round of the seasons; it is the secret of the spring. , , So, the autumn is far-sighted; greatest of the three in faith and vision. The summer recalls her secret, as something that season had been apprised of in its youth; the winter remembers it after many days, and when i about to die. The autumn then, is no mere dreamer; her vision calls up memories and stirs aspiration : it reveals the end in the beginning and the beginning in the end, which is life J But, through her , secret, does she strain faith to the breaking-point >. Is there aught of the practical, sordid it may ho yet solid, about this autumn ? Do not shout the words in her ears ; but see what she boars in her arms. Clusters of the green and purple vine, sheaves of yellow com. fruit of the earth which the spring germinated, the summer ripened, food for the winter drear!" And be it not forgotten also, that in autumn the flowers bloom. Not so gorgeously. not so gaily as in , the summer, which is nature's halcyon time of blossom; but as in the spring they come not over plenteously, yet as resurrection- from the dead ; so in the autumntide do they manifest life, as men turn themselves in slumber,' to sink into a deeper sleep. So might it be claimed for autumn,, that it is the great, the culminating, the chief season of the year, were it, not known that a similar plea for prerogative might be urged in behalf of the others. It is the season of ripeness, . the autumn, when the best, or the worst, may be kriown. How fair is the spring with 'its blossom of promise; but rough, shaking winds "may blow ere the suns of summer shine. Hpw bright is. this same summer's sunshine; but a drought may, par<sh, or floods may drown the ripening fruit or harvest. "But autumn holds its store, be it scant or large, ripened it has the last word to speak, sad or joyous, of the work of the. summer and the spring. Yet even then, whether it speaks in fruit-laden trees and golden harvests, or through bare branches and barren fields, , it speaks but - for the time; for well does autumn know 'that, the winter is but' waiting' to 'usher in ianother spring; ' ' i So, may it' be termed: life's proving, tfco autumn tiiie.' 1 'lis i the . plncWftz: ..ripe fruit which brings autumnal gladness; ; the reaping of the yellow grain which brings the harvest joy.' And thus are the fruits ■ of life best reckoned, its harvests 'ever best seen.' 111 the face of death; for autumn is just the end of a process, glorious doubtless, yet transitory. It is ever the forerunner of winter; and.life is .better* than death only ever, and , always as' winter gives birth to the.spring. .• : " - Autumntide then, is not to be dreaded, but rather welcomed. .Why' is sadness, even melancholy, associated with this seaeon of the year? Is it not because of. thegeneral shortsightedness -of man, his lack of imagination, his - poor time-blinded; vision ? Does he 'sorrow, as he casts . the yellow grain into the ground to die ? Then why should he grieve at time of golden harvest? Does he sorrow to bury the roots of the fruit-trees in" the cold dark earth? Then why should he grieve at the plucking of : their fruit? . .It is answered that not the v ripened harvest saddens, nor the _ fruitladen trees;. but the, bare fields, and branches,denuded even of leaves. , 111 other words, it is explained, . that it, is . not autumn- itself which saddens, but the approach of winter; not autumn as l the bringer of ripeness, but autumn as the precursor of decay not autumn in herself, but autumn as the prophetess. And what is this but to admit that _ the sorrowcausing attributes of this rich season 'of the year pertain more to winter than 'to itself. To be sad therefore, at autumntide ; what, is this but to put the burden of the future upon the shoulders of the present? To 1 grieve, • when the harvests are ingathered; what is this,: .but to take the short view that miserable peep into tho future, which, though magnifying of the more immediate to-morrow, hides all the golden'days to come! Surely, if autumn speaks' of the future, as assuredly she does of the past, it is to call, trumpettongued, for the large, the extended.view.' Her call is for the lifting of the. eyes; to see spring, summer, and even another autumntide, beyond the coming of wintertime! Empty her very horn of plenty itself, into the Jap of winter, if we will; but upon it let no doleful blast be ' blown! Think of what it contained and knowit empty, only to be filled again! Sound the hope of another harvest, in the face of winter itself; and know that death exists but for the fulness of life! Mit what of the colours of the autumntide ? As they are writ on fading foliage, where may comparison for them be'found? Look at the leaves of this creeping vine, which ivy-like clings to the wail of some dwelling! Pea-green, those leaves ventured forth in the spring, all trembling in its breeze to meet the rain showers, summer comes, with sunshine and with zephyr wind, changing to deeper tint of living green the leaves but what is this Autumn comes, and they are transfigured ! Those " green leaves, so uniform in their j verdant colouring, are changed to every shade of glorious hue, to bronze and yellow, to purple and vermilion and old gold. Pluck a leaf, and see how saffron and heliotrope alike, with many intermediate and indeterminable shades of colouring, have been born _ from their parent green to be merged into the allprevalent crimson-brown of autumn. Could it. but tell us its secret, this crimson-brown! Or is it spoken^there, "blazed broad in this very bronze of glon, writ upon an autumn leaf? And is it that we cannot or will not understand its message' Have we eyes to see, yet see not. Where at least, shall comparison, a reflex be found for this glory of the autumn- j tide • where can the echo be heard of this verv' song of glorious colouring, which through its transfiguring power proclaims victory in the face of death 7 It is found ] in the glowing sunset; of an evening, not j otherwise than the autumntide of day, is-, ] suing in the winter of night. In late autumn itself, or early winter, is this £r]ory of the heavens most frequently seen. Then and not otherwise, too, is it ■ be-.-holden, but by lifting of the eye from earth; to sky. When the great orb of day, sinking to rest in the" west, lights up its attendant way with a glorious arid multicoloured effulgence 'of light, then ia it surely known that, spite of the gorgeous colouring, tho black night must as usual fall to blot it out; but through tho darkness of the night, when fallen,: there. soon come whisperings of the dawn, and in time, from the brightening,radiantly.? in the east, up springs the sun! So above, as below' m the - heavens as' upon the "earth, vie torious life in the face of apparent death is the song of the auttunntiaa» ~