The Last Rose of Summer.

ONE of the boys brought me a rose, a red rose, today, or rather a red rose to be, for it is nothing but a bud yet; and there was wisdom in that, unusual in this queer world.

A full-blown blessing is pretty near ready to fade, and so the urchin brought me a rose before it was a

rose.

Frosts stay late, and come early, in the great latitude of earth, and nearly all our hopes and happiness are in the bud―—always in the bud. They seldom blossom-they seldom ripen-they keep us waiting for summer; the early rains' of the human heart fall, but somehow a winter intervenes between April and July-the latter rains' are shed upon our graves, and the buds ne'er come to blooming.

Well, were there no better land,' no brighter skies, no fairer flowers, Death's door would be a

darker portal than it is.

But there is more about this bud, that the Chemist might find out. It is dust-nothing but tinted and fragrant dust; and into what forms, may it not have

entered, in the transmigrations of time! Perhaps the very iron that lends the blush to the half-folded leaves, that the gentle winds would have unravelled, had it not been among the last roses of summer," has given color to some cheek that grew pale when the King of Shadows came-some cheek that had glowed beneath the lips of beauty, or at the first soft whisper of love-some cheek whose elements were strown to the winds; but kind Nature cared for them all, and shaped them out anew, in the bud of beauty that now lies withering before me.

So, if it ever be your lot-God grant it never may -to stand by the grave of one who died in beauty-one whom you loved, living, and mourned, dead, and the little billow of green turf above her has subsided, and a rose-tree waves there, in the soft sunmer air, leave a tear on it, if you will, but pluck not a bud!

In what disguisings does the past still linger around us! "The Dead Past!" It is not dead; it lives in the flower, the fountain, and the bow.

Nay, the very tears shed by Humanity yesterday, are in the pearly and golden clouds of to-day.

In the grand cycle of being, Death is nothing but change

“a sea-change,

Into something rich and strange."

SUMMER was a lady-last night she died.' A trifle too ardent sometimes, perhaps, but then, beautiful-but then, gone

What a glorious company of Summers there must be, some where, to be sure! Eighteen hundred and fifty-three, since the new count began; and no body knows, very certainly, how many before that.

Oh! for some new Machinist to arise, who shall Oh! for a shrill North

construct a brake' for Time.

Wouldn't we bring up

Easter, to whistle it down.' Time at the first Summer Station he came to, and keep him in a Depot of flowers perennially? June should begin in January-December be as 'pleasant as May.

Fireside Musings.

FALL!

fall.

How eloquent the word! The flowers fall in the gardens, the fruits fall in the orchards, the nuts fall in the woods, 'the stars' fall in the sky, the rains fall from the clouds, the mercury falls in the tubes, the leaves fall every where, and FALL it is.

The wind is sighing round the corners, moaning over the thresholds, singing at the windows, roaring over the chimney-tops, and harping through the forests.

The gray clouds look angry and sullen. The great, heavy drops come driving against the window-panes; the cattle stand in the fields, with the wind astern; the sheep gather under the lee of the barn. They 'banked up' the house, yesterday; put the cabbages in the cellar, the day before; will cover the potatoes