Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/357

223 AUTUMN SCENES AND FLOWERS.

To the mind accustomed to contemplate and enjoy Nature, every season is so full of beauty, that in describing or alluding to them successively, we unconsciously give to each a seeming preference.

each in its turn calls forth our loving praise. To Spring and Summer we have already paid all the brief tribute which the limits of these pages allow:—and brown Autumn must now succeed her more brilliant, but not more beautiful sisters.

Thomson's opening lines in this season, are too finely descriptive to be forgotten here:—

Crown'd with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,

While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,

Comes jovial on, the Doric reed once more,

Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the Wintery frost

Nitrous prepared; the various-blossomed Spring

Put in white promise forth; and Summer suns

Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view,

Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme—