The softened season all the landscape charms;

Those hills, my native village that embay,

In waves of dreamier purple roll away,

And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms.

And the morning and evening effects now show more variety, as well as richness, than in the summer months. What added picturesqueness is given to the reflections by the many and various colors around the shores! And what joy to sail in the steamer when the evening sunlight pours upon the sides of Ossipee and Red Hill, falling here and there upon grassy slopes, running in golden streams to the water's edge, leaving broad spaces or stripes of deep emerald or purple shade between, over which some scattered maples and birches stand, kindled into torches of scarlet and yellow fire!

The birds with most splendid plumage are not attractive songsters. In the summer-time, the pleasure of morning and evening by the lake-side is enhanced by the songs of birds and the sounds of winds through the waving crops and the full strung harps of the woods. But now the appeal is to the eye, and the ear is unsolicited. It is the melodies of tint and the grand harmonies of color that appeal to us in the Autumn. There is seldom a breeze on the lake during the reign of the October haze. The tender whispers of the wind are hushed; the pulses of robin music, the shrill but sweet soprano of the fife-bird, and the whippoorwills' soft concert, do not enrich the air. The cricket's monotonous chant, "the insect's drowsy hum," is all the accompaniment allowed to the gorgeous pageantry of October, the sunset of the year.

It is a pity that tourists could not see the lake when it is thus enfolded in the pomp of purple and gold. But if we can learn to see it truly in its paler beauty of summer, we shall find ourselves drawn into sympathy with the charming poem written by Mr. Whittier as the antistrophe to the lines which introduce our description, entitled

SUMMER BY THE LAKE-SIDE.

EVENING.

YON mountain's side is black with night, While, broad-orbed, o'er its gleaming crown

The moon slow rounding into sight,

On the hushed inland sea looks down.

How start to light the clustering isles,

Each silver-hemmed! How sharply show

The shadows of their rocky piles,

And tree-tops in the wave below!

How far and strange the mountains seem,
Dim-looming through the pale, still light!
The vague, vast grouping of a dream,
They stretch into the solemn night.

Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale, Hushed by that presence grand and grave,

Are silent, save the cricket's wail,

And low response of leaf and wave.

Fair scenes! whereto the Day and Night
Make rival love, I leave ye soon,
What time before the eastern light
The pale ghost of the setting moon

Shall hide behind yon rocky spines,
And the young archer, Morn, shall break
His arrows on the mountain pines,
And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake!

Farewell! around this smiling bay
Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom
With lighter steps than mine, may stray
In radiant summers yet to come.

But none shall more regretful leave
These waters and these hills than I;
Or, distant, fonder dream how eve

Or dawn is painting wave and sky;

How rising moons shine sad and mild
On wooded isle and silvering bay;
Or setting suns beyond the piled
And purple mountains lead the day;

Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy,

Nor full pulsed manhood, lingering here, Shall add to life's abounding joy,

The charmed repose to suffering dear.

Still waits kind Nature to impart

Her choicest gifts to such as gain

An entrance to her loving heart

Through the sharp discipline of pain.

Forever from the hand that takes

One blessing from us others fall; And, soon or late, our Father makes His perfect recompense to all!

O, watched by Silence and the Night,
And folded in the strong embrace
Of the great mountains, with the light
Of the sweet heavens upon thy face,

Lake of the Northland! keep thy dower
Of beauty still, and while above
Thy solemn mountains speak of power,
Be thou the mirror of God's love.

THE PEMIGEWASSET VALLEY.

PLYMOUTH, CAMPTON, AND FRANCONIA.

11

"We were thus entering the State of New Hampshire on the bosom of the flood formed by the tribute of its innumerable valleys. The river was the only key which could unlock its maze, presenting its hills and valleys, its lakes and streams, in their natural order and position. The Merrimack, or Sturgeon River, is formed by the confluence of the Pemigewasset, which rises near the Notch of the White Mountains, and the Winnipiseogee, which drains the lake of the sime name. At first it comes on murmuring to itself by the base of stately and retired mountains, through moist primitire woods whose juices it receives, where the bear still drinks it, and the cabins of settlers are far between, and there are few to cross its stream; enjoying in solitude its cascades still unknown to fame; by long ranges of mountains of Sandwich and of Squam, slumbering like tumuli of Titans, with the peaks of Moosehillock, the Haystack, and Kiarsarge, reflected in its waters; where the maple and the raspberry, those lovers of the hills, flourish amid temperate dews ;—flowing long and full of meaning, but untranslatable as its name Pemigewasset, by many a pastured Pelion and Ossa, where unnamed muses haunt,— tended by Oreads, Dryads, Naiads, and receiving the tribute of many an untasted Hippocrene.

Such water do the gods distil,

And pour down every hill

For their New England men,

A draught of this wild nectar bring,

And I'll not taste the spring

Of Helicon again.

Falling all the way, and yet not discouraged by the lowest fall. By the law of its birth never to become stagnant, for it has come out of the clouds, and down the sides of precipices worn in the flood, through beaver-dams broke loose, not splitting but splicing and mending itself, until it found a breathing-place in this low land. There is no danger now that the sun will steal it back to heaven again before it reach the sea, for it has a warrant even to recover its own dews into its bosom with interest at every eve.”

THOREAU.