choose, as the ante-chamber to the ball-room of Newport, where you may breathe the fresh air awhile, and collect your thoughts, and see the ocean and the stars, and remember with regret the days when happiness was in something else than a dance, the days when dared to dream.

you

Nor be surprised, if, as you linger on those cliffs, remembering, one of the ghosts the elders see should lay his light hand upon your shoulder, and whisper as as the sun sets

"Break, break, break,

On thy cold grey stones, O sea;

And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisher boy,

That he sings in his boat on the bay,

O well for the sailor lad,

That he shouts with his sister at play.

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanished hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still.

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea;

But the tender grace of a day that is fled

Will never come back to me."

N Ꭼ Ꮃ Ꮲ Ꮎ Ꭱ Ꭲ

X.

NEWPORT.

SEPTEMBER.

THE golden-rods begin to flame along the road-sides, and in the pleasant gardens of Newport. The gorgeous dahlias and crisp asters marshal the autumnal splendour of the year. All day long, Herrick's Valedictory to the Summer has been singing itself in my mind:

"Fair daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon,

As yet the early-rising sun

Has not attained his noon.

Stay, stay,

Until the hastening day

Has run,

But to the even song;

And having prayed together, we
Will go with you along!

We have short time to stay as you,

We have as short a spring,

As quick a growth to meet decay,

As you or anything.

We die

As your hours do; and dry
Away

Like to the summer's rain,

Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

The first chill breath of September has blown away the froth of fashion, and the cottagers anticipate with delight the cool serenity of the shortening days. The glory has utterly gone from that huge, yellow pagoda factory, the Ocean House. The drop has fallen, the audience is departed, the lights are extinguished, and it were only to be wished that the house might vanish with the season, and not haunt "the year's last hours," with that melancholy aspect of a shrineless, deserted temple.

I fear, however, that not only the glory of a season, but of success, has left the Ocean. The flame of fashion which burned there a year or two since, burned too intensely to last. The fickle goddess, whose temple it is, is already weary of democratic, congregational worship, and affects the privacy of separate orators. They rise on every hand. For fashion dwells in cottages now, and the hotel season is brief and not brilliant. The cottagers will come, indeed, and hear the Germania play, and hop in the parlour; but they come as from private palaces to a public hall, and dis