"Yellow," hinted a Canary, "Warmer, not less _distingué_." "Peach color," put in a Lory, "Cannot look _outré_." "All the colors are in fashion, And are right," the Parrots say. "Very well. But do contrast Tints harmonious," Piped a Blackbird, justly proud Of bill aurigerous; "Half the world may learn a lesson As to that from us." Then a Stork took up the word: "Aim at height and _chic_: Not high heels, they're common; somehow, Stilted legs, not thick, Nor yet thin:" he just glanced downward And snapped to his beak. Here a rustling and a whirring, As of fans outspread, Hinted that mammas felt anxious Lest the next thing said Might prove less than quite judicious, Or even underbred. So a mother Auk resumed The broken thread of speech: "Let colors sort themselves, my dears, Yellow, or red, or peach; The main points, as it seems to me, We mothers have to teach, "Are form and texture, elegance, An air reserved, sublime; The mode of wearing what we wear With due regard to month and clime. But now, let's all compose ourselves, It's almost breakfast-time." A hubbub, a squeak, a bustle! Who cares to chatter or sing With delightful breakfast coming? Yet they whisper under the wing: "So we may wear whatever we like, Anything, everything!" AN OCTOBER GARDEN. In my Autumn garden I was fain To mourn among my scattered roses; Alas for that last rosebud which uncloses To Autumn's languid sun and rain When all the world is on the wane! Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June, Nor heard the nightingale in tune. Broad-faced asters by my garden walk, You are but coarse compared with roses: More choice, more dear that rosebud which uncloses Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk, That least and last which cold winds balk; A rose it is though least and last of all, A rose to me though at the fall. "SUMMER IS ENDED." To think that this meaningless thing was ever a rose Scentless, colorless, _this!_ Will it ever be thus (who knows?) Thus with our bliss, If we wait till the close? Though we care not to wait for the end, there comes the end Sooner, later, at last, Which nothing can mar, nothing mend: An end locked fast, Bent we cannot re-bend. PASSING AND GLASSING. All things that pass Are woman's looking-glass; They show her how her bloom must fade, And she herself be laid With withered roses in the shade; With withered roses and the fallen peach, Unlovely, out of reach Of summer joy that was.