The corridor was vacant, the windows full of sun;
He stole within the midmost, and primed afresh his gun:
Then stood, with all his senses alert in ear and eye

To catch the lightest signal that showed the Emperor nigh.

A sound of wheels: a silence: the muffled sudden jar
Of guards their arms presenting: a footstep mounting far,
Then nearer, briskly nearer,-a footstep, and alone!
And at the farther portal appeared Napoleon!

Alone, his hands behind him, his firm and massive head With brooded plans uplifted, he came with measured tread: And yet, those feet had shaken the nations from their poise, And yet, that will to shake them depended on the boy's!

With finger on the trigger, the gun held counter-wise,
His rapid heart-beats sending the blood to brain and eyes,
The boy stood, firm and deadly,-another moment's space,
And then the Emperor saw him, and halted, face to face.

A mouth as cut in marble, an eye that pierced and stung
As might a god's, all-seeing, the soul of one so young:
A look that read his secret, that lamed his callow will,
That inly smiled, and dared him his purpose to fulfil!

As one a serpent trances, the boy, forgetting all,

Felt but that face, nor noted the harmless musket's fall;

Nor breathed, nor thought, nor trembled: but, pale and cold as stone,

Saw pass, nor look behind him, the calm Napoleon.

And these two kept their secret; but from that day began
The sense of fate and duty that made the boy a man;
And long he lived to tell it,-and, better, lived to say:
"God's purposes were grander: He thrust me from His way!"

CHAPTER XII.

RECENT POETS.

EDWIN MARKHAM was born in the state of Oregon in 1852. While yet a child his father died and the family removed to California. In very limited circumstances, his mother was unable to give him the early opportunities which she desired, but he developed an unusual fondness for nature and a free, out-of-door life. Added to this liking for woods and meadows and all living things was an insatiable love of reading. This last was hard to satisfy, because of the scarcity of reading material in a new country. Deprived of books in boyhood, as soon as fortune permitted, Markham became a book collector and acquired a fine private library.

By dint of hard effort, the future poet received first a Normal, then a college education. Nevertheless he felt that in many ways school life was less free and independent than he might have wished. Believing that manual labor should constitute a part of each one's work-a-day life, he applied himself to blacksmithing. However, during months passed as a smithy, he dreamed out poems for leisure hours.

For some time Markham has made his home in New York. His poems are known in many lands, for they have appealed particularly to those who have the welfare of humanity at heart and who look for some adjustment of present social wrongs. The fraternity of man is Markham's watchword, and in his Man with a Hoe and The Sower he has sought to bring home the misery of unceasing toil to those who remain deaf to all prayers and care for self alone. Inasmuch has been compared to Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal. In lines like these the western poet continues to sing his songs for the world:

There is a destiny that makes us brothers:
None goes his way alone:

All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.

BROTHERHOOD.

The crest and crowning of all good,
Life's final star, is Brotherhood;
For it will bring again to Earth
Her long-lost Poesy and Mirth;
Will send new light on every face,
A kingly power upon the race.
And till it come, we men are slaves,

And travel downward to the dust of graves.

Come, clear the way, then, clear the way;
Blind creeds and kings have had their day.
Break the dead branches from the path:
Our hope is in the aftermath-

Our hope is in heroic men,

Star-led to build the world again.

To this Event the ages ran:

Make way for Brotherhood-make way for Man

THE BUTTERFLY.

O winged brother on the harebell, stay-
Was God's hand very pitiful, the hand

That wrought thy beauty at a dream's demand?
Yea, knowing I love so well the flowery way,
He did not fling me to the world astray-
He did not drop me to the weary sand,
But bore me gently to a leafy land:
Tinting my wings, He gave me to the day.

Oh, chide no more my doubting, my despair!

I will go back now to the world of men. Farewell, I leave thee to the world of air,

Yet thou hast girded up my heart again; For He that framed the impenetrable plan, And keeps His word with thee, will keep with man.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN !

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won:

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

tained a host of readers. But this journalistic joker was an indefatigable collector of works and curios, and his last volume was "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac." His fondness for children was shown not only in writing numerous lullabies and little folk's stories, but in his collection of their toys and trinkets. Field wrote some notable poems in Western dialect, and then varied his work by exquisite translations from Horace. During his life he issued a dozen volumes, and after his death, in 1895, his works were collected (10 vols., New York, 1896) with affectionate tributes from his friends.

LITTLE BOY BLUE.

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair,

And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
"And don't you make any noise!"
So toddling off to his trundle-bed

He dreamt of the pretty toys.

And as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue-

Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true.

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,

Awaiting the touch of a little hand,

The smile of a little face.

And they wonder, as waiting these long years through,
In the dust of that little chair,

What has become of our Little Boy Blue

Since he kissed them and put them there.