Taking timely counsel of his experience, he adapts his labors to the seasons as they pass; has his eye on sun and soil at once. Nor shall I think the less of his piety, if he be touched a little with that amiable superstition concerning the planetary influences; since it ill becomes him to hold lightly any faith that serves to brighten his affections and establish sweet relationships between himself and natural things. In sympathy with earth and heaven, these conspire for his benefit: all helping to fructify and ripen his crops. It is unlawful to regard them as enemies of human tillage. Gracefully the seasons come round for weaving into his fancy, if not his faith, the old world's ritual as a religion of engagements. He is an ephemeris and weather-glass. He has his signs too, and aspects, his seasons, periods and stints. The months sway him. What if he sympathize with the year as it rolls; take equinoxially his March and September? Will his intermediate times be the less genial in consequence, or his April fail of distilling mystic moods with her fertilizing rains? His winter may come hoar with ideas, and brown October shall be his golden age of orchards and their ambrosia. And as June best displays the garden's freshness, so October celebrates the orchard's opulence, to crown the gardener for his labors. The golden days running fast and full have not run to waste. Orchards and gardens bloom again. He harvests the richer crop these have ripened; bright effluences of the stars, for the feast of thought and the flow of discourse. Having thus "gathered the first roses of spring and the last apples of autumn," he is ready to dispute felicity with the happiest man living, and to chant his pæan of praise for his prosperity:-- The earth is mine and mine the sheaves, I'll harvest all her bounty leaves, Nor stinted store she deals to me, Gives all she has, and gives it free, Since from myself I cannot stir But I become her pensioner: Sun, cloud, flame, atom, ether, sea, Beauteous she buildeth into me, Seasons my frame with flowing sense, Insinuates intelligence; Feeds me and fills with sweet contents, Deals duteously her elements: Dawn, day, the noon, the sunset clear, Delight my eye; winds, woods, my ear, While apple, melon, strawberry, peach, She plants and puts within my reach; Regales with all the garden grows, Whate'er the orchard buds and blows; Lifts o'er my head her sylvan screens, And sows my slopes with evergreens, While odorous roses, mint, and thyme, Steep soul and sense in softer clime; Preserves me when lapsed memory slips Fading in sleep's apocalypse; Surprising tasks and leisures sends, And crowns herself to give me friends; The morn's elixir pours for me, And brims my brain with ecstasy. Earth all is mine and mine the sheaves, I harvest all her Planter leaves. IV.--THE ORCHARD.