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The giant ledges, red and seamed,

The clear, blue sky, tree-fretted;

The mottled light that round us streamed,
The brooklet, vexed and petted;

The bees that buzzed, the guats that dreamed,

The flitting, gauzy things of June;

The plain, far-off, like misty ocean, Or, cloud-land bound, a fair lagoon,They sang within us like a tune,

They swayed us like a dream of motion.

The hours went loitering to the West,
The shadows lengthened slowly;
The radiant snow on mountain-crest
Made all the distance holy.
Near by, the earth lay full of rest,
The sleepy foot-hills, one by one,
Dimpled their way to twilight;
And ere the perfect day was done
There came long gleams of tinted sun,
Through heaven's crimson skylight.

Slowly crept on the listening night,

The sinking moon shone pale and slender; We hailed the cotton-woods, in sight, The home-roof gleaming near and tender, Guiding our quickened steps aright.

Soon darkened all the mighty hills,

The gods were sitting there in shadow; Lulled were the noisy woodland rills, Silent the silvery woodland trills,"Twas starlight over Colorado!

SHADOW EVIDENCE. Swift o'er the sunny grass,

I saw a shadow pass

With subtle charm; So quick, so full of life, With thrilling joy so rife, I started, lest unknown, My step-ere it was flown,— Had done it harm.

Why look up to the blue?
The bird was gone, I knew,
Far out of sight.
Steady and keen of wing,
The slight, impassioned thing,
Intent on a goal unknown,
Had held its course alone

In silent flight.

Dear little bird, and fleet,
Flinging down at my feet
Shadow for song:

More sure am I of thee-
Unseen, unheard by me-

Than of some things felt and known,
And guarded as my own,

All my life long.

THE TWO MYSTERIES.

"In the middle of the room, in its white coffin, lay the ded child, a nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful 22tle girl on his lap. She looked wonderingly at the spectacle of death, and then inquiringly into the old man's face. 'You don't know what it is, do you, my dear?' said he, and added, 'We don't either.'"

We know not what it is, dear,
This sleep so deep and still;
The folded hands, the awful calm,
The cheek so pale and chill;
The lids that will not lift again,

Though we may call and call;
The strange white solitude of peace
That settles over all.

We know not what it means, dear,
This desolate heart-pain;
This dread to take our daily way,

And walk in it again;

We know not to what other sphere
The loved who leave us go,
Nor why we're left to wonder still,
Nor why we do not know.

But this we know: our loved and dead,
If they should come this day--
Should come and ask us, "What is life?"

Not one of us could say.

Life is a mystery as deep

As ever death can be;

Yet oh! how dear it is to us,-
This life we live and see!

Then might they say-these vanished ones-And blessed is the thought!

"So death is sweet to us, beloved,

Though we may show you naught;
We may not to the quick reveal
The mystery of death-
Ye cannot tell us, if ye would,

The mystery of breath."

The child who enters life comes not

With knowledge or intent,

So those who enter death must go

As little children sent.

Nothing is known. But I believe

That God is overhead; And as life is to the living, So death is to the dead.

NOW THE NOISY WINDS ARE STILL.

Now the noisy winds are still;
April's coming up the hill!
All the spring is in her train,
Led by shining ranks of rain;

Pit, pat, patter, clatter,

Sudden sun, and clatter, patter!— .
First the blue, and then the shower;
Bursting bud, and smiling flower;
Brooks set free with tinkling ring;
Birds too full of song to sing;
Crisp old leaves astir with pride,
Where the timid violets hide,—
All things ready with a will,-
April's coming up the hill!

Kate Putnam Osgood.

AMERICAN.

Born at Fryeburg, Me., in 1840, Miss Osgood has contributed to the magazines a number of poems worthy of being collected into a volume. Her little ballad of "Driving Home the Cows" has a homely pathos that goes straight to its mark.

DRIVING HOME THE COWS. Out of the clover and blue-eyed grass He turned them into the river-lane; One after another he let them pass,

Then fastened the meadow bars again.

Under the willows, and over the hill,

He patiently followed their sober pace; The merry whistle for once was still,

And something shadowed the sunny face.

Only a boy! and his father had said

He never could let his youngest go:

Two already were lying dead

Under the feet of the trampling foe.

But after the evening work was done,

And the frogs were loud in the meadow-swamp, Over his shoulder he slung his gun

And stealthily followed the foot-path damp.

Across the clover, and through the wheat,
With resolute heart and purpose grim,
Though cold was the dew on his hurrying feet
And the blind bat's flitting startled him.

Thrice since then had the lanes been white, And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom; And now, when the cows came back at night, The feeble father drove them home.

For news had come to the lonely farm

That three were lying where two had lain; And the old man's tremulous, palsied arm Could never lean on a son's again.

The summer day grew cool and late.

He went for the cows when the work was done; But down the lane, as he opened the gate, He saw them coming one by one:

Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess,

Shaking their horns in the evening wind; Cropping the buttercups out of the grassBut who was it following close behind?

Loosely swung in the idle air

The empty sleeve of army blue; And worn and pale, from the crisping hair, Looked out a face that the father knew.

For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn,
And yield their dead unto life again;
And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn
In golden glory at last may wane.

The great tears sprang to their meeting eyes;
For the heart must speak when the lips are dumb:
And under the silent evening skies

Together they followed the cattle home.

Zadel Barnes Gustafson.

AMERICAN.

The author of "Meg: a Pastoral, and other Poems" (Boston Lee & Shephard, 1879), is one of the youngest of our American poets (born March 9th, 1841). The reader of her poems is impressed, in some of them by

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