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ANNE REEVE ALDRICH.

ISS ALDRICH was born in New York, April 25, 1866. From her earliest years she showed a fondness for composition, spending hours from the time she learned to print in writing stories and verses, although she had the usual healthy childish tastes for romping and all out-of-door sports. At the death of her father, which occurred in her eighth year, her mother removed to the country, where she took charge of her daughter's education at first, which was afterward carried on by competent tutors. Miss Aldrich displayed remarkable proficiency in composition and rhetoric, which was counterbalanced by what she herself calls an amusing inaptitude for mathematics, so that, while she was translating French and Latin authors for amusement, she was also struggling over a simple arithmetic, whose tear-blotted leaves she still preserves.

In her fifteenth year a friend suggested her sending a poem to The Century, or Scribner's Magazine, as it was then called. Although the verses were returned, with them she received a friendly note of encouragement and praise from the editor, who from that time often criticized the young girl's work. She wrote constantly and voluminously, usually destroying her work from month to month, so that but few of her earlier verses are extant. She also read widely, her taste inclining to the early English poets and dramatists and to mediæval literature. When she was seventeen her first published poem appeared in Lippincott's Magazine, followed by others in The Century, Scribner's and various periodicals. In 1885 Miss Aldrich's mother moved back to New York, where they now reside. Her first book, "The Rose of Flame and Other Poems of Love," was issued in March, 1889.

Miss Aldrich is slender and girlish in appearance. She dislikes country life and is fond of society. She is a brilliant conversationalist, a most entertaining correspondent, and is fond of all the arts, as music, painting, etc. Her family is of English extraction. Her ancestors were notorious Tories in Revolutionary days, and their large estates were confiscated by the American government. M. A. H.

NEW EDEN.

IN that first Eden, Love gave birth to Shame,
And died of horror at its loathsome child.

Let us slay Shame, and bury it to-day,
Yea, hide it in this second Eden's wild,

This dim, strange place, where for aught we two know,

No man hath stepped since God first made it so.

Now dream we are alone in all the earth.
Say, wouldst thou weep if all save us were dead?
I would not weep, but closer to my breast
Would press the golden glories of thy head,
Rejoicing that none other of my race

Should feed his eyes upon thy wondrous face.

Look at this tangled snare of undergrowth,
These low-branched trees that darken all below;
Drink in the hot scent of this noontide air,
And hear far off some distant river flow,
Lamenting ever till it finds the sea.

New life, new world, what's shame to thee and
me?

Let us slay Shame; we shall forget his grave

Locked in the rapture of our lone embrace. Yet what if there should rise, as once of old, New wonder of this new, yet ancient place,

An angel with a whirling sword of flame
To drive us forth forever in God's name!

LOVE'S CHANGE.

I WENT to dig a grave for Love,
But the earth was so stiff and cold
That, though I strove through the bitter night,
I could not break the mold.

And I said: "Must he lie in my house in state,
And stay in his wonted place?

Must I have him with me another day,
With that awful change in his face?"

TWO SONGS OF SINGING.

I.

SING to me once again, till I forget
That now we hate, and dream we love on yet.
Thy voice, if aught on earth, can wake regret;
Sing to me once again, till I forget.

Sing! At thy voice the old dream shall arise.
Make me thy fool, feed me again with lies,
For I was happier ere I grew so wise.
Sing! At thy voice the old dream shall arise.

II.

When first I heard thee sing, O, my Beloved,
Thy voice, like wine, ran through my sleepy blood,
Woke soul and flesh in answer to its pleading,
And thrilled the unstirred depths of maidenhood.

Listening, I wept, with strange delicious anguish,
Nor knew it was a bitter prophecy,

A dim foreshadowing to my troubled spirit
Of future tears that I must shed for thee.

A WANDERER.

THE Snow lies thick around his door,
That door made fast by bar and lock;
He will not heed thee, trembling, chilled;
He will not heed thy piteous knock.
Poor wandering Heart, canst thou not see
There is no welcome here for thee?

The air is numb with frost and night.
O, wait no longer in the snow,
For lo! from yonder latticed pane
Faint music and the fire-light's glow.

He hath another guest in state,

And thou, poor Heart, thou art too late!

IN NOVEMBER.

BROWN earth-line meets gray heaven,

And all the land looks sad,

But love's the little leaven

That works the whole world glad.

Sigh, bitter wind; lower, frore clouds of gray!
My love and I are living now in May.

IGNIS FATUUS.

THE pathway led through marshy land,
My weary feet slipped in the ooze,
The drenching fog clung close around,
Yet never did my will refuse

To travel on, to crush the rising moan,
Nor question why my way was set alone.

Across the marshes came the sound,
Mist-muffled, of the lonely sea.

I passed the landmarks, one by one,
This slimy stone, that rotting tree.

"Nearing the end," I told my fainting soul,
"Be brave; we soon shall reach the journey's
goal."

How could I know, when night closed in,
That ghastly light would haunt the moor
To lead me back to whence I came,
Always ahead, a Devil's lure?

So Hell gave them the race, and left for me
The faint and mocking laughter of the sea.

HARRIET MABEL SPAULDING.

HARRIET MABEL SPAULDING was born in

Gloversville, N. Y., and is the daughter of Rev. N. G. Spaulding, a prominent Methodist clergyman of the Troy Conference. Her earliest surroundings were of a cultivated nature, both of her parents possessing fine literary attainments. Her father graduated with honor from Union College, and is a platform orator of ability. Her mother is an alumna of Mrs. Willard's Seminary in Troy, and possesses skilled artistic talent. In 1868 the family removed to Schodack Landing, a spot calculated to inspire a poet of nature, with the Hudson rolling its serene course on the one side, and the Catskill Mountains on the other. In 1877 Miss Spaulding graduated from the Albany Female Academy, and in rapid succession won six gold medals in various branches of composition, offered by the Alumnæ. Miss Spaulding's first verses were written at the age of nine years. Her poems breathe a keen sympathy with nature's varied moods. Much of her verse is introspective and is inspired by deep religious fervor. Her poems are founded on the simpler models and are chaste and melodious in diction.

Personally, Miss Spaulding is tall, graceful and dignified, with a classically-formed head. She has brilliant conversational and musical abilities and is a social favorite. She is between twenty-five and thirty years of age and resides at Schodack Landing, N. Y. F. W. H.

COMPLETION.

FAR off in the meadow the daisies white
With buttercups glow in the morning light,
The tree blossoms shake from their cups the dew,
And smile below to the violets' blue;
For Spring has come, though she tarried long,
And filleth the air with her voice of song.

The Summer comes from her coy retreat,
And the roses bloom 'neath her dancing feet,
While the lily leans o'er the lake below,
Dipping her hands in its crystal flow,
And the apple blossoms of early spring
Fair globes of gold in the sunshine swing.

The grain is white on the far-off hill,
Though the May bird's carol is hushed and still;
The reapers press through the falling leaves,
And gather the weight of the harvest sheaves,
The Autumn reaps from her golden store,
The fruit the blossoms of spring-time bore.

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But I-I have sported the hours away,
From the opening morn till the close of day,
Till beautiful autumn came at last,
And gave me the fruit of the weary past;
The summer and harvest their work have done,
But mine is unfinished, and scarce begun.
And I ask to-day, when life's spring is o'er,
And its lessons of hope are taught no more,
When her summer has flown on airy feet,
May I read her mission and mine-complete,
And in perfect trust may I waiting see
The grain of life's harvest bend for me?

A SONG OF AWAKENING.
AWAKE, awake, oh, Buttercup!
The dews are sparkling in the light.
O'er hedges sweet, in meadows bright,
The flowers unfold; the sunlight weaves
A web of gold o'er the emerald leaves,
And the soft poplars drooping low,
Shower forth their silvery buds of snow.
Within the waters mirrored fair

Bathe thy bright locks of shining hair,
And flutter in the sunlight bold,
Until the woods are all a-gold

With flashing hues; till cowslips small
Come forth and blossom at thy call.
Look up, thou sleeping one, look up!
Wake from thy slumbers, Buttercup!
Wake up, wake up, oh, Daffodil!
Far o'er the hill-tops, newly born,
Flush the faint roses of the morn;
With tinted fingers clamber out
Into the sun, for all about
Shall greet thee! Hasten now to rift
The mossy mold and upward lift

Thy pure face, where the streamlet winds
Among the hills, while backward shines
Splendor to splendor! Softly wake
The downy mosses of the lake,

Till the arbutus raises shy
Its fair head to the fairer sky;

A new life breathes on moor and hill,
Wake up, wake up, oh, Daffodil !

GOING BERRYING.

LONG years ago, on a golden day,
When the ripe, red berries lay fast asleep,
Down where the roses were wrapt away

In the tangled leaves of the meadow deep,
They roamed together, the maiden fair,
And he with his ringlets of sunny hair,
And their laughter rang out on the air so still
As they went berrying over the hill.

Oh! sly, brown ringlets that floated gay!
Oh! little maiden, so sweet and fair,
Did you dream of his thoughts as you roamed
that day,

Enshrined in those tresses of golden hair?
For the eyes of the lover saw only you,
With your cheeks that rivaled the rose in hue,
As he carried the basket you helped to fill
With the berries that waited over the hill.

What wonder that hands so small and brown
Would meet his own-the tangled vines!
What wonder the hours would pass so soon,

That the sky with the western sunset shines! But what, little maid, were the words he said That turned your lips and your cheeks so red, That left the basket as empty still

As when you went berrying over the hill? Though years have fled, and the blushing glow Of the crimson berries has passed away, Yet summer comes, and her loving hands

Bring others as rosy and bright to-day. And thro' the bloom of the woodland ways, With laughter and song, as in other days, The youths and maidens are roaming still To gather the berries over the hill.

But he, with his eyes of deepest blue,

His ringing voice and conscious grace,
Lies low where the willows above him wave,
And the daisies cover his laughing face.
And an aged woman, with tear-filled eye,
Stands watching the happy throng go by,
And the scene is as sweet to her memory still
As when she went berrying over the hill.

Her merry eyes, that were laughing then,
Are dimmed with time, while the hand of care
Has silvered the locks on the aged brow,

And furrowed the cheeks that were once so fair. Though youth's sweet visions have flown away, And under the willows he sleeps to-day,

Yet her heart is as true and as royal still
As when they went berrying over the hill.

SPRING.

The reign of the midnight has ended,
There's a flush of the dawn on the hill,
There's a carol of song in the valley,
And paled is the eventide chill.
There's a murmur of leaves in the forest,
A tinting of gold in the morn,
For spring has awaked from its slumber
And anew in its freshness is born.

-Easter Morn.