Again I heard the steadfast trees; The wintry winds were blowing; There seem'd a roar as of stormy seas, And of ships to the depths down-going And ever a moan through the woods were blown, As the branches snapp'd asunder, And the long boughs swung like the frantic arms Of a crowd in affright and wonder. Heavily rattled the driving hail! And storm and flood combining, Laid bare the roots of mighty oaks Under the shingle twining. Said tree to tree, "These tempests free Our sap and strength shall nourish; Though the world be hard, though the world be cold, We can endure and flourish!" [From Eliza Cook's Journal.] THE WANE OF THE YEAR. But autumn wanes, and with it fade the golden tints, and burning hues, and the warm breezes; for winter, with chilling clasp and frosty breath, hurries like a destroyer over the fields to bury their beauties in his snow, and to blanch and wither up with his frozen breath, the remnants of the blooming year. The harvests are gathered, the seeds are sown, the meadow becomes once more green and velvet-like as in the days of spring: the weeds and flowers run to seed, and stand laden with cups, and urns, and bells, each containing the unborn germs of another summer's beauty, and only waiting for the winter winds to scatter them, and the spring sunshine to fall upon them, where they fall to break into bud and leaf and flower, and to whisper to the passing wind that the soul of beauty dies not. It is now upon the waning of the sunshine and the falling of the leaf that the bleak winds rise angrily, and the gloom of the dying year deepens in the woods and fields. We hear the plying of the constant flail mingling with the clatter of the farm-yard; we are visited by fogs and moving mists, and heavy rains that last for days together; upon the hill the horn of the hunter is heard, and in the mountain solitudes the eagle's scream; up among craggy rifts the red deer bound, and the waterfall keeps up its peals of thunder; and although the autumn, having ripened the fruits of summer, and gathered into the garnery the yellow fruitage of the field, must hie away to sunbright shores and islands in the glittering seas of fairy lands, she leaves the spirits of the flowers to hover hither and thither amid the leafless bowers to bewail in midnight dirges the loss of leaves and blossoms and the joyful tide of song. It is one of these of whom the poet speaks; for he, having been caught up by the divine ether into the regions of eternal beauty, has seen, as mortals seldom see, the shadows of created things, and has spoken with the angel spirits of the world:--