AUTUMN.

THOU Comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,
And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!
Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain !

Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven's o'erhanging eaves,
Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended;
Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden
leaves !

DANTE.

TUSCAN, that wanderest through the realms of

gloom,

With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes,
Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise,
Like Farinata from his fiery tomb.

Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom;
Yet in thy heart what human sympathies,
What soft compassion glows, as in the skies
The tender stars their clouded lamps relume!

Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks,

By Fra Hilario in his diocese,

As

up the convent-walls, in golden streaks,

The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease; And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks,

Thy voice along the cloister whispers, "Peace!"