Nature I’ll court in her sequestered haunts,
By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell,
Where the pois’d lark his evening ditty chants,
And Health, and Peace, and Contemplation dwell.
Where Study shall with Solitude recline;
And Friendship pledge me with his fellow-swains;
And Toil and Temperance sedately twine
The slender cord that fluttering life sustains,
And fearless Poverty shall guard the door;
And Taste unspoil’d the frugal table spread,
And Industry supply the humble store;
And Sleep unbrib’d his dews refreshing shed;
White-mantled Innocence, ethereal sprite,
Shall chase far off the goblins of the night;
And Independence o’er the day preside,
Propitious power! my patron and my pride!
TOBIAS SMOLLETT, 1721–1771.
XX.
=Autumn.=
Autumn is a favorite season with American poets; they have taken great
delight in singing the high-toned magnificence of the season, as well as
that delicacy and sweetness of aspect which so often adds an exquisite
charm to the brilliancy of autumnal beauty under our native skies. The
poets of Europe have scarcely sung the delights of Spring with more
eloquent fervor. We can not wonder that such should be the case; from
the first tinge of peculiar coloring to the last smile of the Indian
Summer, the season is full of interest and beauty, of ever-varying
aspects. It has been with real reluctance that we have been compelled to
turn aside from many beautiful passages of American verse which we had
originally hoped to have inserted in this division of the volume; but
fortunately they lie already within every reader’s reach, in other
forms.