THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3444, 16 March 1920, Page 61

THE GARLAND.

By Duncan Weight, Dunedin.

FOR THE QUIET HOUR. No. 342.

AUTUMN QUESTIONINGS AN,D' HOPES. (By Mary E. Blake.) The golden haze of Autumn creeps and dallies Above the far horizon's misty rim; The golden lights of Autumn fire the valleys, While summer's fading beauties pale and dim. And mellowed to a pure and deeper measure, The murmuring wind sings lullabies of rest Low crooning to the safe and garnered treasure That lies secure on Nature's loving breast. Forgot in happier sense of full fruition, The grime and heat of labour's unrest cease; Earth sleeps from all the dreams that wait ambition, And joins with heaven in one fair hymn of peace. On what blest scene of love and joy supernal, Beyond Time's changes safe and far away, Do thy dear eyes, made glad with life eternal, O child beloved! look out and rest to-day? What change has crept above thy boyish beauty ? What joys have addled sweetness to thy smile ? What unknown bliss of higher hope and duty Has crowned the brow we knew and kissed erewhile ? And how are they—the well-beloved and cherished— Who by thy side have sought the land beyond, Beside whose graves life's fairest dreams have perished— Are they still ours, the darlings fair and fond? Thy brothers' voices in mine ear are ringing, Their footsteps bound! above the sun-brown sod/ But oh for one swift glance, where, gladly springing, Thy white feet press the happy fields of God! Oh! for one instant wild with bliss immortal, And mad with fulness of delight and pain— To enter in at heaven's unguarded portal, And catch the love-light of thine eyes again! Sometime! sometime! 0 God, that dealeth kindly, The ,da,y must come when grief and tears shall cease, And life's torn hearts, that weep and smile so blindly, Rest in the Autumn sweetness of Thy peace.

"Let the young go out in these hours, under the descending sun of the year, into the fields of nature. Their hearts are now ardent with hope—with the hopes of fame, of honour, or of happiness; and, in the long perspective which is before them, their in.agination creates" a world where all may be enjoyed. Let the scenes which they now may witness, moderate, but not extinguish their ambition; —while they see the yearly desolation of nature, let them see it as the emblem of mortal hope;—while they feel the disproportion between the powers they possess, and the time they are to be employed, let them carry their ambitious eye beyond the world; —and while, in these sacred solitudes, a voice in their own bosom corresponds to the voice of decaying nature, let them take that high decision which becomes those who feel themselves the inhabitants of a greater world, and who look to a being incapable of decay. "Let the busy -and the active go out, and pause for a season amid the scenes which surround them, and learn the high lesson which nature teaches in the hours of its fall. They are now ardent with all the desires of moi-tality; and fame, and interest, and pleasure are displaying to them their shadowy promises, and, in the vulgar race of life, many weak and many worthless passions are too naturally engenderedl. Let them withdraw themselves for a time from the agitations of the world; let them mark the desolation of summer, and listen to the winds of winter, which begin to murmur above their heads! It is a scene, which, with all its powers, hag yet no reproach;—it tells them that such is also the fate to which they must come; that the pulse of passion must one day bend low;, that the illusions of time must pass; and that 'the spirit must return to Him who gave it.' It reminds them, with sentle voice, of that innocence in which life was begun, and for which no pros--perity of vice can make any compensation, and that angel who is one day to stand upon the earth, and 'to swear that time shall be nq more.' seems now to whisDer to- them, asiid the hollow winds of the year, what manner of men ought tihev to be. who must meet that decisive hour." —(Allison.)

"Thou crownest the year with thy goodne««t • and'+hv paths dro<n fatness. "They drop udoii the pastures of the wilderness ; and the' little hills rejoice on everv side. "The p"a stunts are clotheli with flocks : the valleys* also are covered over with com : thev shout for iov. thev also sing." —(P.salm lxv : 11, 12.. 13.) 'Tifi Autumn, father, all our flowers are dead, But I have found some glowing crimson leaves. Mood-red berries that will do instead, "We cnv. supnly the rosss' plaee with these. The child held \\p her treasures to his eyes, Into the' eager face the old man smiled, Each season's needs our Father's love supplies, ■ Yes, now'it is the Autumn-time my child. AN AUTUMN EVENING-. The hectic afternoon to evening pale Now turns with noiselers change; And o'er the hedgerows colouring down the vale, Looms gray the gabled Grange. And wan., too, on its western windows gray, The climbing clouds are cast — Earth's winding-sheets, all edged with streaming spray, Forerunners of the blast.

Twirled here end there in nooks about the lanes, The red leaves lie in heaps: And each ancestral crow within the planes An ominous silence keeps. The languid smoke, o'er orchards brown and bare, And leaf-strewn homestead tracks, Curls lazily into the livid air, From homes by yellow stacks. All nature seemeth held in deep suspense, As the impending storm — Now drawing nearer, and now swaying hence— Assumes no settled form. Big drops anon plash on the rutty road, And bursts the pent-up squall The weary labourer seeks his snug abode, And gloom descends on d.ll. —(Chambers's Journal.) "The foliage of the old oak overhead is as yet as green as in summer, and the ashes are laden with 'keys' like thrifty house-wives. The feathery larches look rather funereal, their leafage, so green in Spring, being now ©ombre and sunburnt. Away on either hand run little glades through the wood; they are carpeted with bush (grass, dead leaves, fading violet plants, and empty bluebell seed vessels, dry and withered—and walled in with nutladen hazels [Oh! the happy hours of boyhood in the long ago days of yore!] and the blood-blotched leaves of sycamore saplings. Brambles, rich and glossy, black fruit, and scrambling' all over, the leaves on their purple stems already crimson, yellow and blood-red. So warm are the days that are sending up great new shoots, and hazels, and sycamores are already plumping next year's buds, as though it were Spring. Here is the hunting ground of the spiders; it is a grand day for them. They are all out on business, big and little, and ' the bushes are gossamered over with the silken moss of their webs, and from twig and grass-stem long streamers idly float like pennents, glinting in prismatic hues in the sunlight." —(Henry Martin, M.A.) Western winds of Autumn, sighing Long and low beneath the trees, Where the tinted leaves are lying Scarcely rustled by the breeze. Friend of Sorrow! bring thy balming To the weary sons of strife, Day thy quiet hand of calming On the fevered pulse of life. Golden Autumn! how I love thee! With thy low, deep, mellow song, Chanting round, beneath, above me Lessons thou hast taught me long; Lessons of the heart's submission, Breathing out a holy calm, Solemn chords of eoul-contrition Blending into one deep psalm. And no more I weep and; wonder How all loss evolveth gain, Though Life's hollow echoes thunder To the chaos of my pain; 'Neath God's Autumn winds of sorrow Lies the promise of His Spring! Hope shall find in that glad morrow Bright, eternal blossoming! "Thou crownest the year." "0 Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy riches." "When the conqueror journeys through the nations, his paths drop blood; fire and vapour of smoke are in his track," death and tears, and groans, and sighs attend him. [How about 1914,1919?] But where the Lord journeys, His 'paths drop fatness.' When the kings of old made a pilgrimage through their dominions, they caused a famine wherever they tarried; for the greedy courtiers who swarmed in their camp devoured all things like locusts, and were as greedily ravenous as palmer-worms and caterpillars. But where the great King of kings journeys, He enriches the land; His 'paths drop fatness.' . . . Happy, happy are the people who worship such a God, whose coming is ever a coming of goodness and of grace to His creatures."—U. H. S. Slowly, silently, sadly Night's hush falls over the land, And the trilght warm tints of Autumn. Fade in the evening grey. The ruddy blaze of bracken, The glint of the burnisE'd beech Grow pale at the sad mist's kisses, And die in their chill embrace. The day is def'd, the sun has fled. And never sound the silence breaks, Save where far adown the vale The sheep bells tinkle in the fold. Or creaking slowly on its way, Be weary horses lazy drawn, Towards the farm upon the hill, The market wain goes lumib'ring home. From cottage homes lights glimmer now, The hills into the valley melt, The day is dead, the sunshine fled, Night's sombre mantle covers all. —W. B. Green.