Summer is dead, ay me! Sweet summer's dead! The sunset clouds have built his funeral pyre, Through which, e'en now, runs subterranean fire: While from the East, as from a garden-bed, Mist-vined, the Dusk lifts her broad moon--like some Great golden melon--saying, "Fall has come." MADISON CAWEIN September Twenty-Seventh All America will soon treasure alike both Federal and Confederate exploits, in the greatest of wars, as a priceless national heritage. Then Semmes and the _Alabama_ will shine beside John Paul Jones and the _Bonhomme Richard_, Decatur and the _Philadelphia_, Lawrence and the _Chesapeake_, and be ever lauded with the victories of _Old Ironsides_, the intrepid deed of Farragut sailing over the mines in the channel of Mobile Bay, that of Dewey entering Manila Harbor, and of Hobson bringing the _Merrimac_ under the fire of the forts at Santiago. JOHN C. REED _Raphael Semmes born, 1809_ September Twenty-Eighth The _Alabama_ had been built in perfect good faith by the Lairds. When she was contracted for no question had been raised as to the right of a neutral to build and sell to a belligerent such a ship. The reader has seen that the Federal Secretary of the Navy himself had endeavored not only to build an _Alabama_, but ironclads in England. RAPHAEL SEMMES _John Laurens born, 1754_ September Twenty-Ninth When summer flowers are dying, August past, When Autumn's breath is sighing On the blast; When the red leaves flutter down To the sod, Then the year kneels for its crown-- Goldenrod! VIRGINIA LUCAS September Thirtieth Thistles send their missives white To the sky; Robins southward wing their flight, (Sad goodbye!) But where Summer, yellow-gowned, Last has trod, Thorn-torn fragments strew the ground-- Goldenrod! VIRGINIA LUCAS October Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf To blind the eyes of grief; Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit That sorrow may be mute; A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep, Ere the gray dusk may creep Sober and sad along thy dusty ways, Like a lone nun, who prays; High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls; Thy lazy lizard sprawls On his gray stone, and many slow winds creep About thy hedge, asleep; The Sun swings farther toward his love, the South, To kiss her glowing mouth; And Death, who steals among thy purpling bowers, Is deeply hid in flowers. JOHN CHARLES MCNEILL October First