EQUINOCTIAL.

By Sidney Maxwell.

  The autumn day is almost spent.  And yet
  No length’ ning shadows mark the sun’s decline,
  For all is shadowed by the cold, gray mist
  Which long has driven with the fitful wind,
  And still it is not gone.  How chill the air! 
  It seems but yesterday that summer’s breath,
  Sultry and dry, distressed the thirsty fields—­
  And now the skies, repentant of their fault,
  Will more than make amends.  It rains again,
  Beating a doleful measure on the pane,
  Sobbing in sad, wild cadence through the street
  While ever ’mid the rising, falling strains
  The eaves drop notes as those of muffled drum,
  Alone in rhythm, save, perchance, the beat
  Of some tired horse’s hoofs, as, homeward bound,
  He treads the flooded pavement stones.  And now
  The sun, weary of contest for the day,
  Forsakes the scene and sinks away to rest,
  Leaving the world to darkness and to rain.

* * * * *

EDITOR’S TABLE.

The Democrats of Massachusetts are perplexed in regard to the choice of a candidate for gubernatorial honors.  In their dilemma they seem indisposed to heed the counsel of the venerable Dutchman who, on a certain critical occasion, asserted that it was not wise to “swap horses while crossing a stream.”

It so happens that in this present year the Democratic party throughout the country is crossing a stream, a deep and muddy one which divides its former prestige from its future hopes and prospects.  The wise and foolish members of the party are at loggerheads.  Both have taken into their confidence an anomalous contingent which is neither in sympathy, nor even in alliance with them as regards principles.  The Mugwumps, so called, whose only recommendation in politics is, that they have a well-filled purse and know how to use it to bolster up what they are pleased to designate as their “independence,” after having bitterly opposed the Democratic party, in season and out of season, now join hands with their deluded brethren for a grand all hands round.  By their help a President of the United States has been elected, by their dictation his policy has been mapped out, and by their threatening attitude the entire administration is controlled.  A similar condition of affairs was never before known in the history of American politics.

Now, the Independent Republican will always be a Republican in principles.  The same honest motives which impelled him to oppose the chosen candidates of a majority of the Republican party, at the last national canvass, will again and always prompt him to oppose a Simon-pure Democrat of the Democrats.  So long as he can have his own way, he will deny an equal right to his political neighbor.  One thing is very evident, and that is, in Massachusetts the Independents are bound to rule so long as the Democratic party will continue to let them; and that the administration encourages this state of affairs is alike evident to all careful observers.  It would be easy to make some very interesting disclosures on this theme, and it is not improbable that they will be made very shortly.