BIRDS AND NATURE.

O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped!

The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung

On wands; the chestnut’s yellow pennons tongue

To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped

In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped;

And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among

The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung

Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped

The purple grape,—last thing to ripen, late

By very reason of its precious cost.

O Heart, remember, vintages are lost

If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait.

Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy’s estate,

Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost!

—Helen Hunt Jackson.

Graceful tossing plume of gold,

Waving lowly on the rocky ledge;

Leaning seaward, lovely to behold,

Clinging to the high cliff’s ragged edge;

Burning in the pure September day,

Spike of gold against the stainless blue,

Do you watch the vessels drifting by?

Does the quiet day seem long to you?

—Celia Thaxter, in “Seaside Goldenrod.”

Then tiny warblers flit and sing,

With golden spots on crest and wing,

Or, decked with scarlet epaulette

Above each dusky winglet set,

They hunt the blossoms for their prey

And pipe their fairy roundelay.

—Rose Terry Cooke, “My Apple Tree.”