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But your sons and your daughters, unconquered by strife,

Shall rise on my pinions and bathe in my life, While the fierce glowing splendors of suns cease to burn,

And bright constellations to vapor return,

And new ones shall rise from the graves of the old, Shine, fade and dissolve like a tale that is told.

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE.. SWING inward, O, gates of the future! Swing outward, ye doors of the past! For the soul of the people is moving

And rising from slumber at last. The black forms of night are retreating, The white peaks have signaled the day, And freedom her long roll is beating,

And calling her sons to the fray.

And woe to the rule that has plundered

And trod down the wounded and slain, While the wars of the Old Time have thundered, And men poured their life-tide in vain. The day of its triumph is ending,

The evening draws near with its doom, And the star of its strength is descending, To sleep in dishonor and gloom.

Though the tall trees are crowned on the highlands

With the first gold of rainbow and sun, While far in the distance below them

The rivers in dark shadows run,

They must fall, and the workmen shall burn them

Where the lands and the low waters meet, And the steeds of the New Time shall spurn them With the soles of their swift-flying feet.

Swing inward, O, gates! till the morning
Shall paint the brown mountains in gold,
Till the life and the love of the New Time
Shall conquer the hate of the Old.
Let the face and the hand of the Master
No longer be hidden from view,
Nor the lands He prepared for the many
Be trampled and robbed by the few.

The soil tells the same fruitful story,
The seasons their bounties display,
And the flowers lift their faces in glory
To catch the warm kiss of the day;
While our fellows are treated as cattle
That are muzzled when treading the corn,
And millions sink down in life's battle
With a sigh for the day they were born.

Must the Sea plead in vain that the River
May return to its mother for rest,
And the Earth beg the rain-clouds to give her
Of dews they have drawn from her breast?
Lo! the answer comes back in a mutter
From domes where the quick lightnings glow,
And from heights where the mad waters utter
Their warning to dwellers below.

And woe to the robbers who gather

In fields where they never have sown,
Who have stolen the jewels from labor
And builded to Mammon a throne;
For the snow-king, asleep by the fountains,
Shall wake in the summer's hot breath,
And descend in his rage from the mountains,
Bearing terror, destruction and death.

And the throne of their god shall be crumbled,
And the scepter be swept from his hand,
And the heart of the haughty be humbled,
And a servant be chief in the land.
And the Truth and the Power united
Shall rise from the graves of the True,
And the wrongs of the Old Time be righted
In the might and the light of the New.

For the Lord of the harvest hath said it,
Whose lips never uttered a lie,
And his prophets and poets have read it
In symbols of earth and of sky:
That to him who has reveled in plunder
Till the angel of conscience is dumb,
The shock of the earthquake, and thunder,
And tempest, and torrent shall come.

Swing inward, O, gates of the future!
Swing outward, ye doors of the past!

A giant is waking from slumber

And rending his fetters at last.

From the dust where his proud tyrants found

him,

Unhonored, and scorned, and betrayed, He shall rise with the sunlight around him, And rule in the realm he has made.

THE MOUNTAINS OF LIFE.

THERE's a land far away, 'mid the stars, we are told,

Where they know not the sorrows of time, Where the pure waters wander through valleys of

gold,

And life is a treasure sublime;

'Tis the land of our God, 'tis the home of the soul, Where ages of splendor eternally roll;

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ISAAC R. BAXLEY.

271

Where the way-weary traveler reaches his goal
On the evergreen Mountains of Life.
Our gaze can not soar to that beautiful land,
But our visions have told of its bliss,

And our souls by the gale of its gardens are fanned
When we faint in the deserts of this;

And we sometimes have longed for its holy repose, When our spirits were torn with temptations and woes,

And we've drank from the tide of the river that flows

From the evergreen Mountains of Life.

Oh, the stars never tread the blue heavens at night,
But we think where the ransomed have trod;
And the day never smiles from his palace of light,
But we feel the bright smile of our God!
We are traveling homeward through changes and
gloom

To a kingdom where pleasures unceasingly bloom, And our guide is the glory that shines through the tomb

From the evergreen Mountains of Life.

MARION MOORE.

GONE art thou, Marion, Marion Moore, Gone like the bird in the autumn that singeth, Gone like the flower by the wayside that springeth, Gone like the leaf of the ivy that clingeth

Round the lone rock on a storm-beaten shore.

Dear wast thou Marion, Marion Moore, Dear as the tide in my broken heart throbbing, Dear as the soul o'er thy memory sobbing; Sorrow my life of its roses is robbing, Wasting is all the glad beauty of yore.

I shall remember thee, Marion Moore,

I shall remember, alas! to regret thee;
I shall regret thee when all others forget thee;
Deep in my breast will the hour that I met thee
Linger and burn till life's fever is o'er.

Gone art thou, Marion, Marion Moore,
Gone like the breeze o'er the billow that bloweth,
Gone like the rill to the ocean that floweth,
Gone as the day from the gray mountain goeth,
Darkness behind thee, but glory before.

Peace to thee, Marion, Marion Moore, Peace which the queens of the earth can not borrow,

Peace from a kingdom that crowned thee with sorrow;

O, to be happy with thee on the morrow,

Who would not fly from this desolate shore?

ISAAC R. BAXLEY.

SAAC R. BAXLEY, a true poet in aspiration and in execution, was born in Baltimore, Md., in 1850. He was educated at the Catholic College of St. Ignatius de Layola (although he is not a Catholic himself), and passed the bar before, the age of twenty-one. Mr. Baxley says this was his first legal crime-but the age question was not | asked of him. He practiced little at the law, and abandoned it because he wished to write, and only write poetry.

He commenced to write very early, and no amount of interference could, at any time, have prevented him from pursuing an action over which he had no abiding control. His opinion of poetry is that the old issues, customs and manners therein will soon resign themselves to the new movements and aspirations discerned in all spiritual things, and that the Genius of Poetry is ever the furthest sighted in all human eyes; and that her lips are already beginning to open, singing the things she sees. There is no death to Poetry-but those who can not as yet see whither she is moving have said so-but she does not listen to what they say; they, in time, will listen to her again and again.

Mr. Baxley has traveled a great deal, having been in Europe twice, and has lived permanently in California since 1878. His home is in Santa Barbara.

Mr. Baxley has published two books of poems, "The Temple of Alanthur, with Other Poems," 1886; and "The Prophet, and Other Poems," 1888. He has in press a very remarkable book of his, to be entitled "Songs of the Spirit." C. W. M.

ABSENCE.

ONE stands upon the wayward sands,
His hollow footing sways and shifts,
Seaward his eyes-the world expands
And settles as the sea-cloud drifts:
Shaken, unstable, and, profound,
The seas and shore do swaying spread;
Drifting and lifting-ahead, aground,
Falls the white spray-wild-whirling-dead.
Stand thou in Memory's changing shades
To yearn and anguish; clear and high
Rings out a voice-and sinks, evades

An answer-unpitying passes by:
Look out thine eyes-thy hands upraised-
The drift comes in. O sway and turn;
Sick in the whirling, deceived and crazed
For rest-for sight-yearn thou and yearn.

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Upon his cap a scarlet plume

Brushes the clinging dew;

Upon his cheeks the blood-red bloom
Of vigor hath its hue;

Back from his shoulders, folded wide,
His velvet cloak is thrown aside.

And further into Tethan's shade
His dapple paces on,

* And crosses brook, and travels glade,
And winds the trees among;

Sir Raymond sees the sweet wild-rose,
And thus he singeth as he goes:

"O wild, wild-rose, a moment yet
Your cheek is with the dew-drop wet,
Then as it goes in anger by

The hot wind drinks your dew-drop dry,
And you, wild-rose, will die.

"O listen not, wild-rose, to me,

The ring-dove sits on yonder tree,
And he will sing when day is high
A song to moisten your cold eye;
O weep and do not die,

O sad, wild-rose, not die."

II.

Maid Evelyn sitteth with the sun
For early company;

She mindeth not the window-stone
Is cold, and carelessly

She leans her white arms on the gray
Old wall, and looketh far away.

She looketh into Tethan Glen,
'Tis full a league away,
Yet oftentimes did Evelyn ken

Sir Raymond's dapple gray
Rest by the ancient sycamore
For speed across the level moor.

To-day she watcheth wearily,
As only lovers may—
"Mischance, mischance, fly hastily
From Raymond's lord away;

Thou, Lady Ellen, quiet keep,

When thou shalt wake then I shall weep.

"O soft, O softly summer rain
Comes blowing in the glen,
And sweetly comes his kiss again
Unto Maid Evelyn;

A breeze that rises from the rose
Is his sweet voice to me,
But O, how cold the sunlight grows
When he goes o'er the lea!

"I sit and listen to my heart, It singeth sad and low;

O well I see the blood-red dart
Into my bosom go;
Each day he cometh not to me
An arrow leaves the string,
My breast is bleeding terribly,
O Heart, why strive to sing?

"The wound is wide, and none but he Can backward draw the dart

I see him come across the lea,

Stand still, my bleeding heart!

Stand still! stand still! my very blood
Is flowing from my side-
Bear Raymond onward, precious flood,
Whatever else betide!"

III.

The livelong day the ring-dove kept
His perch upon the tree,

And all the day the wild-rose wept
At his sad melody:

The livelong day Lord Raymond stayed
Beside the eager, blushing maid.

Throughout the day the porter old
Look'd o'er the level plain;

And well he watched lest Hugh the Bold,
Returning with his train,

Might find the dapple in his stall,

And Raymond's lord within his wall.

True love not heedeth bolt nor bar, But sad 'tis ever so;

True love and fate do constant war,

And ne'er together go;
What little moments lovers smile

To the long days between the while.

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