INDIAN SUMMER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2456, 10 April 1901, Page 59

INDIAN SUMMER.

Thou .standest, like inipenal Charlemagne Upon thy bridge of gold, thy royal hand Blessing tho faims through all thy vast do-

mam , Thy shield is the red haivest moon, suspended So long beneath tho heaven's o'ei-hanging

eaves , Thy steps aie by the faimei's prayers attended, Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves , And following thee in thme ovation splendid. Thine Almoner, the "Wind, scatters the golden lea\ ca.

<p«iH>s2foUw.

Tins is the aspect of autumn with which some paits of our own island home surround us. Away inland, where wind's are hushed, and the still worm days, with their frosttouched, starlit nights, are heidy, like new wine: where tmsock-caipeted plains meet naked mountain ranges, silvered with waving snow grass and hiding whatever wealth of forest is theirs down the steep slopes ol winding gullies. Here, when the pakeha has ploughed and sowed and planted, the trees he plants in long hues of plantation or "breakwind " Will be insignis or macrocarpa, whose dark background throws into brilliant relief the clear deciduous trees whose autumnal glories and spring tenderness remind him of the motherland.

Here the poplars stand like pillars of gold, and beech and maple blaze like Moses burning bush : even the homely orchard is turned into an artist's saturnalia with scailet and gold of apple trees, purple, bronze, and bloodred at homely '"deny bushes, ' and brown earth hidden under the amber of fragile curiant leaves, and luxuriance of crimson and purple straw ben y vines. Every little homestead clinging to a grey hillside, or ne-thng in a shelteied pv.lly in- the^e dry inland altitudes, contributes its welcome Hush of colour to warm the sombre grey-green landscapa^ indeed, I bethink me" of many a digger's hut. too tiny itself to be discerned, maiked by its lovely gleam of golden sentinel poplars, glorious m the scailet and gold bravery ci its apple trees. Far away, outposts of civilisation, surrounded by the still solitudes of mountains climbing up to the eternal snows, and reflected in still alpine lakes, the traveller watches for marj" a weary mile the brilliant glow of the Indian summer round «ome long-deserted homestead whose downfall is wnttcn in the "Dccl ne and fall of 'beep farming," but whose deserted gardens and shrubberies still glow eachj-ear w ith the pomp of an Indian summer. But for the majority of us, we who dv, ell on the sea coasts, on the humid, rainbelted, wind-blown sboies of our inland home, autumn too soon wears the aspact oi which Tennyson thus wntes* The air is damp, and hu=hed, and close, As a rick man'b loom when he takcth repose

An hour befoie death , My very heart faints and my whole sonl gneves At the "moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,

And the breath Of the fading edges of box beneath,

And the j ear's la=i, lose. Heavily hangs the bioad sunflower, O\er its grave is the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs, the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger lily — an aspect to which the tenderly regretful phrase, "the fall of the year," seems so much more appropriate. This is 'the' ,«ad side of autumn, which can only appeal to the young from its artistic "standpoint, or from the sad sympathy born ot recent grief and loss. Even in this age of widely spread article training, the former class is narrow, but the latter must always find its wide circle of sorrow -taught disciples — of whom, God grant, we may not be numbered. And here a picture comes to my mind. A tall, handsome gal stands beneath the almost leafless oak trees, sweeping, with splendid sweep of supple arms, the Withered leaves that he ankle deep around her. The lew evening light touches with burnished gleams the chestnut hair vhich breaks in little curls and ripple-, beneath the old tweed cap. There is ,i lovely glow of cxeicUe upon her face, and as the click or the garden gate ai tests her attention, and she turns her head, the heart aches in quick response to the depth of sorrow which darkens the big violet eyes. Her black dress, utterly unrelieved by any touch of white, the deed leaves that he m melancholy drifts about her, the gloom of the mighty in&ignis behind hei. the sunset which illumines her face with its warm transfiguring light, is .a picture of "the fall of the year,"' vivid and imperishable to my memory awd holding too, a rich and beautiful symbolism. Even though hopes hive fallen fa c t as these withered leaves, and the past has wrapped us in garments of the deepest mourning, yet. with back to the shadow, and face sci fair to the light of Heaven, so may the "fall of the year"' be but an Indian summer, cheering ourselves and our little woild with its mellow gloiies.

There are so many rtisons why autumn despite its beruty and splendour, shcukl always be tinged with sadness. In Natuie as in life, hope and anticipation have, in autumn, merged into lealisation. Spung is so busy weaving Summer's robes, thai she leaves us still surrounded by the glamour of greit expectations. The joy of the early violets, the wealth of golden daffodils! the perfumed beauty of the hyacinths, does but piepare us for the swinging tassels of the laburnam, the purple mist of the scented lilac !

Daily we watch for the opening of tins flower," the melting of the snow on that shady spur ; the first evening that we shall dine by daylight : the fir<t cry of th-j cuckoo ; the masterful riMry of the erem spring tides ; the bleating of thf I'mibs ir the home paddock: the whitening of the bridal veil of blossom which spimg throws over the orchard— it is oil a fascinating anticipation Avhich leads us on from day to day, until spring vanishes in the illusive charm she has cast about v*. and leaves summer to fulfill her in\iiad pi onuses. Some portioTi of our own too quickly pacing youth revive* in even the middleaged. I think, as each changeful spring brings back the memory of tho then untried powers which, in very ignorance, seemed to them so limitless.

In life, as in Nature, Summer only partially fulfils the promises of which beautiful >Spring was so lavish. But Rummer. 10-e-govmed, rose-crooned, thorn* hidden under fragrant blossoms, incompleteness veiled in the golden sunshine, drowned in the song of love — Summer passes. Has she failed to bring us all wo hoped? Aie we still only our commonplace selves, and do we begin to realise that the great dreams of youth, the ambitions and nicce^es which seemed so sine, were only dzedms? Why it is too soon to write the word "failure" — \v° still have tlie Indian sunimci. Natuie teaches

v*. The garden, the orchaid, and the liar-* \est fields are but an illuminated missal for him to read who will. The small fruit may have been a failure, and the stone fruit poor — but

Russet and yellow, In apples mellow,

gleam on the trees, Hie pear boughs are laden, the gieat golden quinces ripen in the gully, the walnuts by the tennis lawn, and the hazels on the seaward belt begin to ru e tle bravely in the passing breezes. Hope still finds rainbow tints for her fiutteiiag wings, and ere Summer, crowned now with scarlet poppies, lias fallen asleep, Autumn in his pevmp and magnificence sheds his glories on mch.Td and hedgerow, breathes his peace and nch fulfilment, and with A sober gladness the old year takes up His bright inheritance of golden fruits, And pomp and pageant fiU the splendid c cene, For it is ptill early — still but the Indian summer. Later on. reluctantly, yet all too soon, Autumn dethiones Indian Summer, and,

TPIE FALL OF THE YEAR, a sad and sinister plirise, which fits the season, but not the time of year, heialds in the winter : Through woods and mountain passes, The winds, like anthems 1011 , They are charting solemn masses, Singing, "Piay "foi this poor soul, Piay, piav." Arcl the hooded c'oiule, like firms, Tell their beads m chops of rnn, Ajid patter their doleful prayers But their piayeis aie all in yam, AU in vain '

This, indeed, is autumn m its mot mourn ful aspect, yet one t'>at creeps close, ah, very close, to tho closing era of so many lives, for thf i.utumn of life, --like the autumn of Natric. is, No thuf tj- soaCi, bat ju c t r t mover, Who conies whe'i tho d n y is do ip. And gathers m the ban est so>vn so long ago.

It is so much the fashion nowadays to dwell on the beauties, pleasures, and charms of youth, and flout the ups and mellowed rweetness of age : to exalt spung and summer at the expense of autumn and winter, that the fellow ing lines, taken fiom a recent magazine, struck me as being unusually baantiiol, and form,. T think, a fitting close to our thoughts on Indian sum-

.... Oh. life, deal life, Let the old s:ng thy piaises, for Ihey know How, ye.i: by year, the summers come ar.d go; Each 'vrh ±*3 own abounding sweetness ripe! They know though fiosts bo ciuel as the knife, Yet with esrh June the perfect rose thall blow, And daises blossom, and the gieen grass grow. Tnumphpo'i «till, unvexed by storm and stufe. T*iey know that night more splendid is than

day , Thai <-unset skies flame m the gathering ds>rk, And the cTreo waters change to molten gold. They kL.ov t.^at autumn richer if than liay, Ah, h!e, sweet life, whom the gods love, chs old