“Welcome Autumn, lovely bride, Full of beauty, full of pride! Hear her anklets’ silver ring: ’Tis the swans that round her sing. Mark the glory of her face: ’Tis the lotus lends its grace. See the garb around her thrown; Look and wonder at her zone. Robes of maize her limbs enfold, Girt with rice like shining gold. Streams are white with silver wings Of the swans that autumn brings. Lakes are sweet with opening flowers; Gardens, gay with jasmine bowers; While the woods, to charm the sight, Show their bloom of purest white. Vainly might the fairest try With the charms around to vie. How can India’s graceful daughter Match that swan upon the water? Fair her arching brow above, Swimming eyes that melt with love: But that charming brow can never Beat that ripple on the river; And those eyes must still confess Lilies’ rarer loveliness. Perfect are those rounded arms, Aided by the bracelets’ charms: Fairer still those branches are, And those creepers, better far, Ring them round with many a fold, Lovelier than gems and gold. Now no more doth Indra’s Bow In the evening sunlight glow, Nor his flag, the lightning’s glare, Flash across the murky air. Beauty too has left the trees, Which but now were wont to please; Other darlings claim her care, And she pours her blossoms there. Now beneath the moonlight sweet, Many troops of maidens meet. Many a pleasant tale they tell Of the youths that love them well; Of the word, the flush, the glance, The kiss, the sigh, the dalliance. Not a youth can wander when Jasmine blossoms scent the glen, While the notes of many a bird From the garden shades are heard, But his melting soul must feel Sweetest longing o’er it steal. Not a maid can brush away Morning dew-drops from the spray, But she feels a sweet unrest Wooingly disturb her breast. As the breezes fresh and cool From the lilies on the pool, Sweet with all the fragrance there, Play, like lovers, with her hair.” GRIFFITH. Surpassing “the Seasons” in dignity and elegance, “the Cloud Messenger,” by the same author, contains some fine flights of fancy. It tells how an inferior god, banished for twelve months to a sacred forest and thus separated from a wife whom he fondly loves, commits to a passing cloud a message for his goddess. He directs its imaginary journey through the sky, over forests and hills, to the city of the gods. There it will easily distinguish his wife, whom he paints to the cloud in glowing colors as the “first, best work of the Creator’s hand,” mourning over their separation.