The hushed winds their Sabbath keep.

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods and meadows brown and sear.

The stormy March has come at last, With winds and clouds and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies.

Much has seen said of the wisdom of old age. Old age is wise, I grant, for itself, but not wise for the community. It is wise in declining new enterprises, for it has not the power nor the time to execute them; wise in shrinking from difficulty, for it has not the strength to overcome it; wise in avoiding danger, for it lacks the faculty of ready and swift action, by which dangers are parried and converted into advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at large, by whom new enterprises must be undertaken, dangers met, and difficulties surmounted.

Difficulty is the nurse of greatness.

Poetry is the eloquence of verse.

Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.