The grape-leaf’s edge is crisping Beside our window-pane; Small chirping things are shrinking From cold October rain. I hear the pattering of its feet All round about our home— Among the loosely garnered shocks, Along the runnel’s foam. There sings no bird among our trees— Whose robes are waxing thin— And yellow leaves, on withered grass, Dim graves are sinking in. Chilling is touch of Autumn rain, Darkly the gray cloud lowers, Shutting the sunlight from our paths Among the drooping flowers. Yet gently, as to our weary brows Come folding wings of sleep, It moves along the furrowed fields Where summer dust lies deep. Bravely ’twill nurse the infant grain That in its cradle lies, And nerve it to struggle with the storm Before old Winter’s eyes. And now how quietly all about October sunlight falls; Tracking, with stars, the evening rain, Sparkling on dead leaves’ palls. Moving, in shocks of garnered maize, Is many a fluttering wing; And the wheat smiles to gentle light As if ’twere a living thing. In showers, their crimson garments fall From off majestic forms, Whose hearts, in the living sap kept warm, Are fearless of wildest storms. Round us the forest, in mellow haze, Shuts a still glory in; Under its shadow the cattle graze— Soon to it we shall win! Shaking their nuts from laden limbs, Sharing the squirrel’s mite, Gaily we’ll gather on tufted moss In the yellow Autumn light. By freshening green on the fading grass Life in its depth has stirred, We are not alone among changing leaves, For, hark! there’s a singing bird! * * * * * FRAGMENT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. BY JAMES M’CARROLL. When, in his strength, the monarch of the air Soars proudly through the azure fields of heaven, His pinions burning in the noontide glare, Or flashing in the deep red dyes of even, He sees the earth receding from his eye, And looking round him, in his chainless glee, Utters a loud, a long, wild, piercing cry— And that’s the joyous shout of Liberty. But when he leaves those vast ethereal plains, And falls into the fowler’s hidden snare, Beneath the icy pressure of his chains, How soon his sounding wing hangs listless there;— And oft, as o’er their galling links he broods, Dreaming of the bright hours when he was free, He looks up through those shining solitudes, And shrieks—the bitter shriek of Slavery.