present month. Wind, rain, and gloom are its attributes; the sun

Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day,
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His struggling rays, in horizontal lines,
Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;
And soon descending, to the long dark night.
Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.


Such is the gloomy picture of December, as drawn by the _poet of the
year_.

To the contemplatist, and the man who has

----------No enemy,
But winter and rough weather,

the rural walk at this season is equally inviting with any of its
predecessors; whilst he who can "suck melancholy from a song," will find
melody in its storms and music in its wind. What are more beautiful than
the fretwork frostings of rime and hoar spread on the hedges, glistening
in the broad sun-beam, and in brilliancy and variety of colours vying
with the richest display of oriental splendour--with here and there
berries clustering on evergreens, or pendent in solitary beauty, like
the "rich jewel in the Aethiop's ear." The winter stillness of animal
life is a sublime subject for our meditation. Insects which floated on
the gay sunshine of summer and autumn have now retired to their winter
quarters, there to remain dormant till regenerated in the enlivening