The sweet sad hush on Nature's gladness laid; The sounds through silence heard!

Pipe tenderly the passing of the year;
The Summer's brief reprieve;

The dry husk rustling round the yellow car;
The chill of morn and eve!

Pipe the untroubled trouble of the year;
Pipe low the painless pain;
Pipe your unceasing melancholy cheer;
The year is in the wane.

George Arnold.

AMERICAN.

Arnold (1834-1865) was a native of New York, and early in life applied himself to literary pursuits. His "Drift, and other Poems," edited by William Winter, appeared in 1866. Dying at an early age, Arnold left evidences of a remarkable gift for lyrical expression. His literary career extended over a period of twelve years; "and in that time," says Winter, "he wrote, with equal fluency and versatility, stories, poems, criticisms-in short, everything for which there is a demand in the literary magazines and in New York journalism."

There was a time when I had higher aims
Thau thus to lie among the flowers and listen
To lisping birds, or watch the sunset's flames

On the broad river's surface glow and glisten.

There was a time, perhaps, when I had thought To make a name, a home, a bright existence: But time has shown me that my dreams were naught

Save a mirage that vanished with the distance.

Well, it is gone: I care no longer now

For fame, for fortune, or for empty praises; Rather than wear a crown upon my brow, I'd lie forever here among the daisies.

So you, who wish for fame, good friend, pass by;
With you I surely cannot think to quarrel :
Give me peace, rest, this bank whereon I lie,
And spare me both the labor and the laurel!

A SUMMER LONGING.

I must away to wooded hills and vales,
Where broad, slow streams flow cool and silently,
And idle barges flap their listless sails.
For me the summer sunset glows and pales,
And green fields wait for me.

I long for shadowy forests, where the birds
Twitter and chirp at noon from every tree;
I long for blossomed leaves and lowing herds;
And nature's voices say, in mystic words,
"The green fields wait for thee."

I dream of uplands where the primrose shines,
And waves her yellow lamps above the lea;
Of tangled copses swung with trailing vines;
Of open vistas, skirted with tall pines,
Where green fields wait for me.

I think of long, sweet afternoons, when I
May lie and listen to the distant sea,
Or hear the breezes in the reeds that sigh,
Or insect voices chirping shrill and dry,
In fields that wait for me.

These dreams of summer come to bid me find The forest's shade, the wild-bird's melody, While summer's rosy wreaths for me are twined, While summer's fragrance lingers on the wind, And green fields wait for me.

Richard Realf.

The life of Realf (1834-1878), that "most unhappy man of men," had in it the elements of the most direful trag. edy. A native of Uckfield, Sussex, England, his first volume of verses, "Guesses at the Beautiful," was published while he was yet a youth (1852), in Brighton, England, and won high praise from Thackeray and Lytton. The poor lad was of humble parentage, his father being a daylaborer in the fields, and his sister a domestic servant. He came to the United States about the year 1855, and took a conspicuous part in the Kansas and other border troubles. He subsequently served in the brigade of Gen. John F. Miller in the Civil War, and became a colonel. For a time he was associated with John Brown, "Osawatomie Brown," in Kansas. He was twice married, and became the father of twins by his second wife; but was made frantic by the persecutions of his first wife, from whom he had been separated since 1872. She followed him to Oakland, California, where, to escape the misery of her presence, he took laudanum and died.

Realf gives tokens of intense, though unchastened power, as a poet. Had he been as well educated as Shelley, he might have been his peer. Among his early patronesses was Lady Byron. In the "Life and Letters" of Frederick W. Robertson, the famous Brighton preacher, we find this reference to Realf: "One day," writes Mr. A. J. Ross, "as we were speaking together of the rich endowments of a youth in whom we were mutually interested, he (Robertson) said with emphasis, 'How unhappy he will be!" With what a sad accuracy was the prophesy fulfiled!

MY SLAIN.

This sweet child which hath climbed upon my knee, This amber-haired, four-summered little maid, With her unconscious beauty troubleth me,

With her low prattle maketh me afraid. Ah, darling! when you cling and nestle so You hurt me, though you do not see me cry, Nor hear the weariness with which I sigh, For the dear babe I killed so long ago.

I tremble at the touch of your caress:

I am not worthy of your innocent faith;
I, who with whetted knives of worldliness,
Did put my own childheartedness to death,
Beside whose grave I pace for evermore,
Like desolation on a shipwrecked shore.

There is no little child within me now,

To sing back to the thrushes, to leap up
When June winds kiss me, when an apple-bough
Laughs into blossoms, or a buttercup
Plays with the sunshine, or a violet

Dances in the glad dew. Alas! alas!
The meaning of the daisies in the grass

I have forgotten; and if my cheeks are wet,

Against whose bars we beat so tired wings, Avail not to ward off the clear access

Of His high heralds and interpretings; Wherefore, albeit we may not fully guess

The meaning of the wonder, let us keep Clean channels for the instincts which respond To the Unutterable Sanctities that sweep Down the far reaches of the strange Beyond,

Whose mystery strikes the spirit into fever, And haunts, and hurts, and blesses us forever.

Nancy Priest Wakefield.

AMERICAN.

Nancy Amelia Woodbury Priest (1834-1870), a native of Royalston, Mass., was married in 1865 to Lieut. A. C. Wakefield. Her "Over the River" has had a wide circulation, and is still one of the pieces that illustrate the doctrine of the "survival of the fittest." In the Rev. A. P. Marvin's History of Winchendon is this note: "Mrs. Wakefield, though born in the edge of Royalston, belongs to Winchendon. Her family have resided here from the beginning through five or six generations. Her father moved into Royalston a little while before her birth, and returned while she was quite young." It illustrates the rare power of genius to find two towns contending for the honor of having given birth to the author of a poem of forty-eight lines. But Mrs. Wakefield did not fail to offer other assurance than this of the poetical gift she has displayed so felicitously.

We know she is safe on the farther side, Where all the ransomed and angels be; Over the river, the mystic river,

My childhood's idol is waiting for me.

For none return from those quiet shores,
Who cross with the boatman cold and pale;
We hear the dip of the golden oars,

We catch a gleam of the snowy sail,

And lo! they have passed from our yearning heart; They cross the stream and are gone for aye! We may not sunder the veil apart

That hides from our vision the gates of day, We only know that their barks no more

May sail with us over Life's stormy sea: Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore, They watch and beckon and wait for me.

And I sit and think, when the sunset's gold
Is flushing river and hill and shore,

I shall one day stand by the water cold,

And list for the sound of the boatman's oar;
I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail;
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand,
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale
To the better shore of the spirit land.

I shall know the loved who have gone before;
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
When over the river, the peaceful river,
The Angel of Death shall carry me.

OVER THE RIVER.

Over the river they beckon to me,

Loved ones who've crossed to the other side; The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are drowned in the rushing tide. There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,

And eyes, the reflection of Heaven's own blue: He crossed in the twilight gray and cold,

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view; We saw not the angels who met him there, The gates of the city we could not see; Over the river, over the river,

My brother stands waiting to welcome me.

Over the river the boatman pale

Carried another,—the household pet; Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale,— Darling Minnie! I see her yet.

She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands, And fearlessly entered the phantom bark: We watched it glide from the silver sands,

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark,

FROM "HEAVEN."

The city's shining towers we may not see
With our dim earthly vision;
For Death, the silent warder, keeps the key
That opes the gates elysian.

But sometimes, when adown the western sky
A fiery sunset lingers,

Its golden gates swing inward noiselessly,
Unlocked by unseen fingers.

And while they stand a moment half ajar
Gleams from the inner glory
Stream brightly through the azure vault afar,
And half reveal the story.

O land unknown! O land of love divine!
Father, all-wise, eternal!

O guide these wandering, way-worn feet of mine
Into these pastures vernal!