During the evenings of the spring and summer months, as the gentle twilight steals on the path, the eyes may be elevated from the carpet, to the canopy of nature, and as the gathering shades prevail, alternately admire the clustering hyacinth and the retiring Pleiades, the tufted primrose, and the advancing Arcturus, the tender violet, whose fragrance indicates its lowly bed, and the soft azure of the evening sky. As the season advances, and other flowers spring from the earth, and other stars gain on the heavens, we may hail the opening bud of the rose, and the bright star in the hand of the virgin, the glowing poppy, and the red star Antares, the graceful lily in all its varieties, and Gemma in the Northern Crown; while the gay and infinitely diversified Aster tribe is connected with the return of the splendid train of Taurus, Orion, and their bright companions. Thus are these pleasing demonstrations of the Divine Being, which indicate so much tenderness and love, so associated with the magnificent displays of Creative power, that the mind cannot fail to perceive the same wisdom manifested, whether in the germination of a seed, and the unfolding of a flower, or in the rolling of an orb, and the support of a system.

"All acts with Him are equal; for no more
It costs Omnipotence to build a world,

And set a sun amidst the firmament,

Than mould a dew-drop, and light up its gem."

Heaven's ebon vault,

How beautiful is night! the balmiest sigh
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene.
Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Seems like a canopy which love has spread
To curtain her sleeping world.

Shelley.

One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine,
And light us deep into the Deity;

How boundless in magnificence and might!

O what a confluence of etherial fires,

From urns unnumbered, down the steep of heaven,

Streams to a point, and centres in the sight.

Night is the time to watch;
O'er oceans' dark expanse,
To hail the Pleiades, or catch
The full moon's earliest glance.
Night is the time to think;

When, from the eye, the soul
Takes flight, and, on the utmost brink
Of yonder starry pole,

Discerns beyond the abyss of night

The dawn of uncreated light.

Young.

How calm and clear

James Montgomery.

The silent air,

How smooth and still the glassy ocean,

While stars above

Seem lamps of love,

To light the temple of devotion.

I love to gaze, at the midnight hour,
On the heavens, where all is shining;
I feel as if some enchanting power

Dr. Percival.

Around my heart were entwining:
To see the moon like a beacon fair,
When the clouds sail swiftly by;
And the stars, like watch-lights in the air,
Illumine the northern sky.

I love to look at the silvery light

Of the sparkling gem at the Pole,
And view the others so fair and bright
That round it continually roll.

I love to picture each well-known sign
Where planets their courses urge,
And watch to see them more brightly shine,
Arrived at their topmost verge.

Matthew Henry Barker.

The Naturalist's Diary,
For August, 1830.

Heaven's sultry breath is heavy with perfume,
And summer odours, summer hues obtain;
The forest's stationary line of gloom,

Dark and majestic, skirts the fulgent plain.
And now is langour creeping stealthily,
With unopposed, and irresistible tread
Over the frame,-The blue, religious sky,
One stainless sapphire, arches over head
With lore of love ineffable, outspread;
Whilst health's full currents, equable and slow,
Making it adoration to respire,

Thrill through the veins in warm perceptible flow,
As if the founts of life were rising higher,

That man his Maker's praise might hymn with seraph's fire.

B. Y.

The influence of the Sun during this month brings forth fruit in great abundance, and ripens the corn for harvest time. There is much pleasure derived from agricultural pursuits at this season, and anciently persons of the greatest eminence did not think it beneath their attention. Gideon, the judge of Israel, quitted the threshing-floor to preside in the public assembly of his country. And Cincinnatus, the conqueror of the Volsci, left his plough to lead the Roman armies to battle; and afterwards declined the rewards gained by his victories, to return to his native fields. The great General Washington found the most pleasing relaxation from public business in the management of his own estate. The Emperor of China, at the beginning of every spring, goes to plough in person, attended by the princes and grandees of his empire; he celebrates the close of the harvest among his subjects, and creates the best farmer in his dominions a mandarin.

This is the month of harvest. "The crops usually

begin with rye and oats, proceed with wheat, and finish with peas and beans. Harvest-home is still the greatest rural holiday in England, because it concludes at once the most laborious and most lucrative of the farmers' employments, and unites repose and profit. Our ancestors used to burst into an enthusiasm of joy at the end of harvest, and appear even to have mingled their previous labor with considerable merry-making, in which they imitated the equality of the earlier ages. They crowned the wheat-sheaves with flowers; they sung, they shouted, they danced, they invited each other, or met to feast, as at Christmas, in the halls of rich houses; and what was a very amiable custon, and wise beyond the common wisdom that may seem to lie on the top of it, every one that had been concerned, man, woman and child, received a little present-ribbons, laces, or sweetmeats."Leigh Hunt.

Harvest, however, is often retarded by partial

storms:

"Tis past mid-day-the sun withdraws his beams,
And sultry and oppressive is the air;

While in the dark'ning south, still darker clouds
Their fearful aspect show. The reapers gaze
Silent, and trembling, on the frowning skies;
A sudden flash the wonted signal gives,

And loud, and long, the dreadful crash is heard;
Quicker the lightnings glance-th' increasing storm
Approaches nearer:-mute the rustics stand.
The master casts a pensive look around;
Then upward turns his eyes;-a look that speaks,
"Much corn is yet abroad; a few days more,
And all had been secure :—but, gracious heaven!
Thy will be done." Nearer the tempest comes;
To shun the torrents of a threat'ning cloud,
They seek the shelter of an aged oak,

Whose friendly boughs some shelter might afford,
But, ere they reach it, a tremendous flash
The knotty centre cleaves! amaz'd, they shrink,
As o'er their heads the dread explosion bursts,
And rolls in awful majesty along.

Deep in the bosom of the hollow vale
Affrighted Echo murmurs her reply.
Closer the reapers crowd; for solemn fear
Prevails in every breast!

The gleaners fly

With speed, and in the neighb'ring thicket hide :
And woe to him, who, with dishonest hand,
Has oft in secret from the sheaf purloin'd
The tempting ear; doubtless, for him alone
The lightnings glare; and on his guilty head
The fatal bolt must fall! Thus conscience speaks,
While innocence itself, alarm'd, beholds
A scene so terrible! but the same power
At whose command the fiery tempests rise,
Can still them too. Then hush'd be every fear;
The God of harvest comes not to destroy!

Lightly the show'r descends: the thunder rolls
On the far distant shores; the op'ning skies
In lovely azure glow, and all around
The setting sun a soften'd lustre throws.
Refreshing breezes fly across the plains,

And dash the moisture from the drooping corn.
"Tis mildness all, and nature smiles again

In sweet serenity,—then sinks to rest. C. C. Richardson.

Among the flowers now in bloom is the belladonna lily, (amaryllis formosissima,) one of the most beautiful ornaments of our gardens: when the sun shines full upon it, its deep red color sheds a lustre like gold. The first roots of this plant ever seen in Europe were procured in 1593, on board a -ship which had returned from South America, by a physician at Seville. At first it was classed with the narcissus, and afterwards called lillio narcissus, because its flower resembled that of the lily, and its roots that of the narcissus. It was also called flos Jacobus, because some imagined that they discovered in it a likeness to the badge of the knights of the order of St. James in Spain, whose founder, in the fourteenth century, could not have been acquainted with this beautiful amaryllis.

The Guernsey lily (amaryllis Sarniensis,) is now in flower, and its magnificence is not inferior to the