Having Passed The New Hampshire Line And Reached The Horseshoe Interval In Tyngsborough, Where There Is A High And Regular

Second bank, we climbed up this in haste to get a nearer sight of the autumnal flowers, asters, golden-rod,

And yarrow, and blue-curls (_Trichostema dichotoma_), humble roadside blossoms, and, lingering still, the harebell and the _Rhexia Virginica_. The last, growing in patches of lively pink flowers on the edge of the meadows, had almost too gay an appearance for the rest of the landscape, like a pink ribbon on the bonnet of a Puritan woman. Asters and golden-rods were the livery which nature wore at present. The latter alone expressed all the ripeness of the season, and shed their mellow lustre over the fields, as if the now declining summer's sun had bequeathed its hues to them. It is the floral solstice a little after midsummer, when the particles of golden light, the sun-dust, have, as it were, fallen like seeds on the earth, and produced these blossoms. On every hillside, and in every valley, stood countless asters, coreopses, tansies, golden-rods, and the whole race of yellow flowers, like Brahminical devotees, turning steadily with their luminary from morning till night.

"I see the golden-rod shine bright, As sun-showers at the birth of day, A golden plume of yellow light, That robs the Day-god's splendid ray.

"The aster's violet rays divide The bank with many stars for me, And yarrow in blanch tints is dyed, As moonlight floats across the sea.

"I see the emerald woods prepare To shed their vestiture once more, And distant elm-trees spot the air With yellow pictures softly o'er. . . . . . "No more the water-lily's pride In milk-white circles swims content, No more the blue-weed's clusters ride And mock the heavens' element. . . . . . "Autumn, thy wreath and mine are blent With the same colors, for to me A richer sky than all is lent, While fades my dream-like company.

"Our skies glow purple, but the wind Sobs chill through green trees and bright graas, To-day shines fair, and lurk behind The times that into winter pass.

"So fair we seem, so cold we are, So fast we hasten to decay, Yet through our night glows many a star, That still shall claim its sunny day."

So sang a Concord poet once.

There is a peculiar interest belonging to the still later flowers, which abide with us the approach of winter. There is something witch-like in the appearance of the witch-hazel, which blossoms late in October and in November, with its irregular and angular spray and petals like furies' hair, or small ribbon streamers. Its blossoming, too, at this irregular period, when other shrubs have lost their leaves, as well as blossoms, looks like witches' craft. Certainly it blooms in no garden of man's. There is a whole fairy-land on the hillside where it grows.

Some have thought that the gales do not at present waft to the voyager the natural and original fragrance of the land, such as the early navigators described, and that the loss of many odoriferous native plants, sweet-scented grasses and medicinal herbs, which formerly sweetened the atmosphere, and rendered it salubrious, - by the grazing of cattle and the rooting of swine, is the source of many diseases which now prevail; the earth, say they, having been long subjected to extremely artificial and luxurious modes of cultivation, to gratify the appetite, converted into a stye and hot-bed, where men for profit increase the ordinary decay of nature.

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