22 NOVEMBER 1873, Page 15

POETRY.

AUTUMN.

ON the red autumn leaves I ride, While, parting from the half-stripped trees, The flakes of gold and amber glide And float on the November breeze.

The larches' hair is golden now, They stand in groves of springing flame, Behind them, dark in leaf and bough, The fir-woods stretch their mighty frame.

Ab, splendour of the fading leaf ! Ah, kindly glOry of decay !

Hew it would heal both doubt and grief, k Did Age thus brightly fade away.

si b.rra ,P:-But we are scared by failing breath, We cannot trust the heavenly spring ; And shrinking from the touch of Death, ii oas The beauties of the soul take wing ;

—Take wing, or veil themselves in awe 419 I And bleak regret, and blank amaze,

As though then first the spirit saw

The wasted wealth of deeds and days.

But Age, forlorn, and sad, and cold, The porch of life, the gate of dap. R.