The rain is falling where they lie-but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The windflower and the violet, they perished long

ago,

And the brier rose and the orchis died, amid the summer's glow;

But on the hill the golden rod, and the aster in the

wood,

And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

And now when comes the calm mild day-as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter

home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fra

grance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream

no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,

The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my

side.

In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a lot so brief;

Yet not unmeet it was, that one, like that young friend

of ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

R*

THE CASCADE OF MELSINGAH.

WHO does not know the little cascade of Melsingah? If any of my readers have never visited the spot, nor heard it described, let me tell them that it is situated on the east bank of the Hudson, a little below the mouth of its tributary Matoavoan, about sixty miles from New-York, at the foot of the northernmost ridge of the Highlands, where it crosses the river and stretches away out of sight to the north-east. A brook comes down the crags and woody sides of this ridge, and is fed by the mountain springs throughout the year. After having collected all its waters, it flows for a short distance through the forest, in a narrow rocky glen, parallel to the base of the mountain, and finally pours itself in a thin white sheet over a high precipice. From this precipice the rocky banks, rising above the top of the cascade to a considerable height, recede on each side, and then return in a curve

towards the rivulet, forming a little circular amphitheatre, having the blue pool into which the water descends at the bottom, and, at the lower end, the passage by which the brook hurries off rapidly towards the Hudson. The face of the rock down which the water falls, is covered with a thick mantle of green moss, which keeps its place in spite of the current passing over it, and only serves to work the slender sheet to greater whiteness. Trees of the forest overhang the hollow; the maple, the bass-wood, the black ash, and the hemlock mingle their boughs, and the moose-wood rattles its bunches of green keys as you place your hand on its striped trunk. In May the dog-wood whitens the high bank with its flowers; in June the broad-leaved Kalmia hangs out its crimson-spotted cups over the stream where it comes down from the cleft above; and all around the witch-hazel flaunts with its straw-coloured blossoms in December, like an antiquated belle in the ornaments that belong to the spring of life. Above, is a small open circle among the foliage, corresponding with the shape of the banks, at which the sun looks in for a moment at noon; but the wind never descends into the hollow save in the winter, when it sweeps the loose snow into the glen, and mars the fantastic frost-work of the waterfall. For three

quarters of the year the stream pours over its rock unvisited and unheard, save by the few who love what is beautiful in nature for its own sake. But in the hot months it is a place of resort for those who come to see what every body talks about; and the woody solitude is invaded by strange feet, and the solemn and eternal sound of the falling water mingles with voices that have no business there. Then come the pert citizen, the spruce clerk, the matron with her bevy of giggling girls, the unfledged poet and the fashionable lady, and all whom the dog-star drives from the seat of commerce, to rusticate and sport the latest fashions on the banks of the Hudson. There is no more delightful place for passing an hour or two in a summer noon: the high banks and trees create a fresh and grateful shade; there is always a cool breath from the waterfall, and its very noise seems to mitigate the heat. A tall straight birch on one side of the hollow has its bark scored with the initials of the illustrious obscure, who have performed this pilgrimage; and fragments of glass bottles mingled with the pebbles on the water's edge, attest the solemnities with which some of them have celebrated their exploit.

In the course of my wanderings in various parts of the world, it had been my amusement to gather