The labor of another year has passed beyond our reach. We can alter
nothing, and the past is of no use to us except as a lesson for the
future. The soil that the plow ripped up, in the spring, has yielded
its harvest, its work is closed, its fruits garnered. The tree whose
boughs grew green when the singing of birds proclaimed that spring was
come, has ripened its fruit, perfected its growth, its store is
gathered, and its leaves are lying beneath it, and slowly returning to
the earth from which they sprang. Only here and there, on a bright
morning, do we see one of those birds which, a few months ago, builded
their nest, watched their young, or taught the nestlings how to
fly—young and old, with their grace of motion and sweet notes, are
gone to a fairer clime. These changes one cannot help noticing; and no
meditative mind can avoid many thoughts which flow out of them. Where
are the harvests garnered which grew in the soil of the human heart?
What thoughts and generous purposes have been ripened and stored up
like fruit, and what ones have fallen and perished like leaves? Our
vernal orchards never stood, within our remembrance, in such a glory
of bloom; yet when the fruit should have set, most of the blossoms
proved vain. And how many good purposes and fair resolutions have so
perished within us! Have we, like the trees which we love and care
for, made growth, of root and branch? Everything in nature has
gradually assumed a preparation for winter. Those frosts and that ice
which would have sent such mischief upon the leaves of summer, now
lie, without harm, upon orchard and garden. Are we ripe and ready,
too, for such a winter as adversity brings upon men?
[23] A.D. 1845.