pound yist'day, and a good thousand t'day. Bluefish is comin' your way, Sandy Doane!" The words seemed to run in his mind in a kind of rhyme: once he actually found himself singing them.

There came a rap at the door. "Letter for you, Sandy Doane; I d'n' know where from." The old man rose and took the envelope almost mechanically. A letter! He had not received one in years. He scanned the address closely, his mind leaping from one theory to another concerning the sender, but with a vague feeling of disquiet ever present which would not down. "I wish Susy was here," he sighed, as he fumbled for his glasses; "She'd read it for me quick enough."

An hour passed, and the old man still sat by the grate; but the letter had fallen to the floor. The blaze had faded to a red glow; it cast a dim, lurid light on the tired figure in the armchair, who sat with his hand over his heart, while unchecked tears lay glistening on the withered cheeks. The room was very still. The sun rose and shone in the window through the geraniums-Susy's flower garden-waking the whole room into new life. It crept across the floor; the letter became a leaf of gold. The beam glanced for an instant on a shape in the armchair, and was gone, dancing blithely across the heatherladen dunes, until it was lost in the gloomy shadow-prison of the pine woods.

There was a gloom about the little house that struck a chill to the men's hearts as they toiled up the hill, and a dull fear came over them as they remembered what Andrew told them the evening before; they looked stealthily at one another, like guilty persons, standing huddled before the door. Andrew raised the latch and entered the lonely place, followed cautiously by the others.

Andrew looked up from a letter which he had found on the floor; his face looked old and drawn. "Men," he said very gently, "Th' old man's gone a long voyage this time, I reckon. He kep' his promise, too. This here's his shippin' articles." In the smoky fire-place the blaze lay dead, hidden under its pall of cold, gray ashes.

Emerson G. Taylor.

"I

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL.

AM not a poet, I am a school-teacher who occasionally writes verses." Edward Rowland Sill uttered these words half in modesty, but in part to make a fine distinction between himself and the men who had adopted poetry as a profession, and therefore posed as poets. However sturdy his literary efforts while at Yale, however finished his class poem, and however mature his later compositions, he would have been the last man to claim any merit in what he had done, or to call his noblest stanzas more than "occasional verses." His own denial moreover, of any affiliation with the class of so-called poets, puts the man in a strange contrast with others gifted with poetical genius, a contrast which gives Mr. Sill the finer attitude. His motives for taking this stand seem to be justified by what he did. His poems were written for his friends rather than for publication, and if they appeared in print, oftentimes it was in an obscure periodical, or under a pseudonym. Above all, his poems were written as the expression of what he felt, and what moved his own heart. There was the pleasure of putting on paper what passed within him, even if no mortal eye should see it. Thus with his own extreme modesty, and with poems representing solely his inmost thoughts, Mr. Sill was least the man to be catalogued with poets who were eager to "secure recognition," or ambitious to compose odes for state functions. What he did write was written with all the genuineness and intensity of his temperament. Yet this earnestness of spirit was not to sacrifice the form of his poetry, nor the beauty of his descriptions. While the form was subservient to the matter, he never relaxed to slothfulness or carelessness in workmanship. But there is something more than heartfelt effort and honest work required for the composition of real poetry; something more was necessary to create the poems which appeared under Mr. Sill's signature. There must be the true poetical nature, which shall change the best prose-thoughts into fanciful and impassioned rhythm, language which shall in some measure interpret the yearnings of the soul.

It is a poor defence of a man's verses to quote the praises of the public press. Such complimentary notices as appear in the newspapers have a well-defined limit in their value; their mission is to introduce new literature to those who read, and to bring to notice what has literary merit. But to cite these opinions as vouchers for an author's work, is like apologizing for certain weaknesses in the text, or like bidding defiance to the judgment of the reader. In the case of Edward Rowland Sill this is especially true. It is unnecessary to say that any man has pronounced his verses good, or beautiful, or poetical, so transparent is their excellence. They need no defence, they stand for themselves, and in themselves excel the nicest praise of critics. All that one can do is to analyze them and to appreciate their variety and charm.

The greater part of Mr. Sill's poetry is confined to two themes-the description of Nature, and the "Problem of Life." His poem entitled, "Among the Redwoods" is representative of the Nature class, and shows the writer in one of his most fanciful moods. At the close he says:

"Listen! A deep and solemn wind on high;

The shafts of shining dust shift to and fro;
The columned trees sway imperceptibly,
And creak as mighty masts when trade-winds blow.
The cloudy sails are set; the earth-ship swings
Along the sea of space to grander things."

The kindly spirit in which the poet refers to the earth in his various similes is always striking. Here he likens it to a ship sailing along serenely; then in another poem to the foster-mother of us all who

"Yearns for us, with her great
Wild heart, and croons in murmurs
Low, inarticulate.

She knows we are white captives,
Her dusky race above,
But the deep childless bosom

Throbs with its brooding love."

Turning to the poems which deal with the questions of human life, the tone of the writer changes as though he were a different man. Each verse has its own lesson and seems to come from the mind of a teacher who speaks with authority, writing from his own experience. The lessons do not impress one as didactic or sarcastic. In his "Field Notes" he writes:

"I would give up all the mind

In the prim city's hoard can find-
House with its scrap-art bedight,
Straitened manners of the street,
Smooth-voiced society-

If so the swiftness of the wind

Might pass into my feet;

If so the sweetness of the wheat
Into my soul might pass,

And the clear courage of the grass;
If the lark caroled in my song;
If one tithe of the faithfulness
Of the bird-mother with her brood
Into my selfish heart might press,
And make me also instinct-good."

One does not recoil irritated at the thrust which the poet makes at city life and its conventionalities. Another writer might have railed much more loudly, yet not nearly so effectively, and at the same time, have stirred up a deep rancor in the breast of the inhabitant of the metropolis. Mr. Sill's objection to city life is but the stronger preface to bring out by contrast the nobility of his own motive, to have "the clear courage of the grass," and to be "instinct-good." While they are his desires, they are quite as forcible in their lesson as if he said that such should be the desires of others; and while he asks for himself, he does it with such grace and tact, that there is the strongest recommendation to all men to adopt his motives for their own.

It is from various points of view that Mr. Sill looks upon life. Now, he considers the forlorn and pitiful way in which men stumble along through it, and again he shows how determination, and loyalty to a worthy cause assure success despite the dullest tools and poorest equipment. Even the blunt weapon which a craven snapped and flung away, inspires a king's son who

"Saw the broken sword,

Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down,
And saved a great cause that heroic day."

But the point which Mr. Sill evidently had first in mind, and one which constantly recurs in his philosophical verses, is the necessity and value of work, work in new fields, and work which should mean the fullest and most intense effort of the laborer, in spite of opposition and ridicule. He paints in glorious colors the reformer predicting the downfall of a "stone-walled city of sin," and the inevitable result when "Down in one great roar of ruin, crash watch-tower, citadel and battlements." Again he makes his appeal for service, and calls out-" If you dare, come now with me fearless, confident, and free," believing this the sweeter and more desirable existence than that of one who is "only as the rest, with Heaven's common comforts blessed." The especial branch of labor which Mr. Sill seemed to value was that among men, where one's personality and character should be focussed upon his fellow-beings. The poet expressed this idea as coming from his own soul, in his alumni poem :

Nailing this thesis on the golden gate

Of the new Mammon temples: that the souls-
The striving, praying, hoping human souls-
Alone on earth are valuable."

That Mr. Sill meant this was shown by his life as a teacher. His work as a professor of English literature was not confined to the routine of recitations and to a class book. He was rather the helper and inspirer of those who were under his instruction. His whole personality was thrown into his efforts to arouse in them a love and enthusiasm for their work. He suggested and lent ideas for others to develop, thus making himself of value in the most practical way. Nor was this association with him without its charm. He was not like an uncongenial