Little child, consider well Who this simple tale doth tell; And I think you’ll guess it soon, For I only am the Moon. MERRY’S MUSEUM. Vol. VIII. NOVEMBER, 1844. No. 5. [Illustration: November.] The trees to the blast have surrendered their leaves, The beauties of summer have fled; The warblers departed for sunnier climes, The herbage is withered and dead. The chill wintry blast shall resound through the woods, The skies with rude storms shall be rife; But spring will return and again clothe the trees, The landscape will glow with new life. According to a French novelist, November is the gloomy month, in which “the people of England hang and drown themselves.” There is something rather sober in the departure of all those interesting charms that have so attached us to summer and the early autumn, yet we can hardly say that there is anything _gloomy_ about it. A pensive, yet pleasing melancholy, is perhaps the predominant feeling in contemplating the changes that take place as the autumn sullenly resigns the year to winter. We have seen the fields stripped of their crops, and the woods of their luxuriant foliage; and now that the great purposes of the season are accomplished, it is not with repining or regret, that we see exhausted nature about to take a short repose. We have been delighted with the music of the fields and groves, we have admired the springing plants and expanding flowers; now our enjoyments are about to be somewhat of a different kind, though they may still be closely connected with the mysterious operations of slumbering nature; we may still study her work with scarce less interest than when her utmost energies are put forth to the work of spring and summer seasons. Let the Englishman hang or drown, if his fancy inclines that way; for myself, there is much in the gloom of winter which I could yet wish to enjoy for years to come. There are the hard frosts, which show an autumn morning with every twig and every blade of grass, every vegetable fibre, houses, rocks, and fences, coated with a thick covering of alabaster, like ice, converting shrubs and thick-clustering weeds into most gorgeous chandeliers; there are the winter sunshine and storms, and the winter-evening fireside. There is the promise and hope of the future year; and above all, there is the contemplation of the power and goodness of Him who has furnished the earth in all the beauty and riches of the seasons, for the comfort and happiness of his creatures.