293

If, at some time, the gayer note has faltered.
We are as God has made us. Gladness, pain,
Delight and death, and moods of bliss or bane,
With love, and hate, or good, and evil-all,
At separate times, in separate accents call;
Yet 'tis the same heart-throb within the breast
That gives an impulse to our worst and best.
I doubt not when our earthly cries are ended,
The Listener finds them in one music blended.
-The Phobe-Bird.

M'

HATTIE HORNER.

ISS HATTIE HORNER was born at Muscatine, Iowa, but has lived nearly all her life in White Water, Butler County, Kansas, her present home. She is a graduate of her native high school, as well as of the class of 1883 of theKansas State Normal School; is a fine classical scholar and an able instructor. Endowed with genius, youth and beauty, fascinating as a conversationalist and correspondent, a gifted elocutionist (although she never recites any but her own poems), a member of the Authors' and Artists' Club of her own state, as well as a teacher of five years' standing as principal of the Arkansas City and El Dorado High Schools, she is deservedly popular, and numbers her friends by scores.

If asked, Miss Horner could not tell when her literary career began. It has always been a part of herself, and from her childhood has kept pace with her growth and development. Her earliest recollections of the work are, when a little brown shepherdess, forgetful of the straying sheep and grazing pony, and the mysteries of leaf and flower that took the place of her banished books, she spent the hours putting together bits of original verse, or weaving fancies into impossible fiction to be repeated to the always appreciative listeners at home. Her first poem was written on the back of an envelope, in one of those idle moments. From that time, though a mere child, she began to write in earnest, and her writings from the first were favorably received. State fame came to her when her "Kansas: 1874-1884" was published. It was written as the last train for the relief of the Ohio flood sufferers left the depot at El Dorado, and was a comparison between the grasshopper year and the present time of plenty. Since then she has been constantly busy in filling the demands for her literary work. But, as is not unfrequently the case, while seeking fame in one direction it came to her unsought from another. It was through the medium of her "Letters" written while traveling for her health during vacation, and comprising four series, from Wisconsin, New Orleans, Colorado, New Mexico and California. While engaged in writing these letters, the Kansas Publishing House issued the first volume of poems. It was successful. In January, 1889, her "Letters" were published in book form, under the suggestive title of "Not at Home."

As a writer, Miss Horner is earnest, sympathetic and liberal in her opinion of men and the times, and while her delineations of character, in her stories and sketches, are always strikingly true to

nature, her charity is ever ready to defend those whose faults others have laid bare. Her language is bright, sparkling and fascinating, her poems veined with a tender melancholy. C. H. H.

KANSAS: 1874-1884.

1874-per Aspera.

CHEERLESS prairie stretching southward,
Barren prairie stretching north;
Not a green herb, fresh and sturdy,
From the hard earth springing forth.
Every tree bereft of foliage,

Every shrub devoid of life,

And the two great ills seemed blighting All things in their wasting strife.

As the human heart, in anguish,
Sinks beneath the stroke of fate,
So at last, despairing, weary,

Bowed the great heart of our State.
She had seen her corn-blades wither
'Neath the hot wind's scorching breath;
She had seen the wheat-heads bending
To the sting of cruel death.
She had seen the plague descending
Thro' the darkened, stifling air,
And she bent her head in sorrow,

Breathing forth a fervent prayer. And the fierce winds, growing fiercer, Kissed to brown her forehead fair, While the sun shone down unpitying On the brownness of her hair.

Then she looked into the future,
Saw the winter, ruthless, bold,
Bringing her disheartened people
Only hunger, want and cold.
Looking, saw her barefoot children

Walk where snow-sprites shrink to tread; Listening, heard their child-lips utter Childish prayers for daily bread.

Low she bowed her head, still thinking

O'er her people's woes and weal,

And the ones anear her only

Heard the words of her appeal.
Send that faint cry onward, outward,
Swift as wire wings can bear,
"Sisters, help me or I perish-
Heaven pity my despair!"

1884-Ad Asta.

Verdant wheat-fields stretching southward, Fruitful orchards east and west;

Not a spot in all the prairie

That the spring-time has not blessed. Every field a smiling promise, Every home an Eden fair, And the angels, Peace and Plenty, Strewing blessings everywhere.

As the heart of nature quivers

At the touch of spring-time fair, So along the State's wide being Thrilled the answer to her prayer. She had seen her dauntless people Ten times turn and sow the soil; She has seen the same earth answer Ten times to their faithful toil.

She has felt the ripe fruit falling
In her lap from bended limbs;
She has heard her happy children
Shouting their thanksgiving hymns.
She has seen ten golden harvests;

Now, with grateful joy complete, She has poured the tenth, a guerdon, At her benefactor's feet.

Thou canst not forget, O Kansas,
All thine own despair and woe;
Who hath long and keenly suffered
Can the tenderest pity show.
Not in vain the needy calleth-
Charity her own repays,
And thy bread, cast on the waters,
Will return ere many days.

Peace, thine angel, pointeth upward,
Where the gray clouds break away;
And athwart the azure heavens

Shineth forth Hope's placid ray.
Look to Heaven and to the future-
Grieve no longer o'er the past;
Through thy trials, God bless thee, Kansas-
See, the stars appear at last.

MAPLE LEAVES.

YES, I must go. The end is come at last
Of all this idle, dreamy, sweet repose.
How swift the days of spring-time glided past!
How sure the summer burns toward its close!

Good-bye the haunts which idleness has known, The sighing trees, the drooping blades of corn, The lately burdened fields now newly sown,

The flow'rs that used to greet the light of morn.

297

I can not stay. The flow'rs will surely die,
And Autumn's hand will burnish hedge and brier,
The swallows soon will to the southward fly,
The maples change to monuments of fire.
If we could only keep the meadows fair,

The heavens blue, the flowers fresh and sweet

O heart, what would we know of pain or care? And would we grieve because the hours are fleet?

The time grew, oh! so precious as it fled;

I think we held Eternity less dear. Why are you sad? Because the Summer's dead? Because my going is so very near?

Do joys unfold with leaves, and then float down? Dear heart, will absence doom our love to die? Ah me! these leaves I saved are curled and brown, And I am weeping. I must go-good-bye.

CONTRAST.

THE rain-cloud came from the purple west,
And decked the corn with many a gem;
But the wind-tossed rose, from its broken stem,
Hung its head by the sparrow's nest.

The farmer whistled a merry air,

As he swung his scythe in the early morn;
But the sparrow sat on the fallen corn,
By her shattered nest, in the sunrise fair.

The shepherd came to the desert wide,

For his stricken lamb by the lonely way; But a mother knelt, at the close of day, With her grief, by the empty cradle side.

NO OUTLET.

Acts XX: 35.

Down from the northern highlands,
Sparkling and pure and free,
Roll the fresh floods of the Jordan,
Into the still Dead Sea.
Yet in its high embankments,
Bitter, and dark, and still,
Lie waters salt; for no outlets
Scatter the deep sea's fill.

So from the highlands of Mercy,
Bountiful, lasting and free,
Flow the pure streams of God's blessings
Into the heart's deep sea.
Yet, into undrained recesses

Vain rolls the tide from above;
Mercy itself can not sweeten

Hearts with no outlet of Love.

RICHAR

RICHARD EDWIN DAY.

ICHARD EDWIN DAY was born in the town of Granby, Oswego County, N. Y., April 27, 1852 He is of good parentage, both father and mother being persons of large intelligence and aggressiv. mind, the former a native of Somersetshire, England, the latter a native of Oswego County. Richard assisted his father in the work of the farm-work to which he never became so enthusiastically devoted as not to find leisure for reading and writing. When his father enlisted in the mili tary service of the Union, Richard was stirred by the events thus so closely brought home to him, and much of his thinking for several years succeeding was of an ardent political nature. His school life hardly commenced before the age when he was able to walk three miles twice a day to attend Falley Seminary, in the village of Fulton. By teaching district schools during a part of the time, he was enabled to enjoy the advantages of the seminary a number of years, and by the same means he paid his way through a four-years' course of study in college. He was graduated with the degree of A. B. at Syracuse University, in 1877, and has subsequently earned A. M. The two years following his graduation he spent in independent study and teaching, being for a year and upwards principal of an academy in Lewis County. In 1879 he entered journalism, first in the office of the Northern Christian Advocate as assistant editor, and in the autumn of 1880 becoming associate editor of the Syracuse Daily Standard, in which position he still remains. As an editorial writer he has won distinction by his lucid and elegant style and versatility.

Mr. Day wrote verses as early as the age of thirteen, but he made no study of poetic art until many years later. In his first reading of Virgil in the seminary he frequently wrote his translation in meter. He wrote a large number of poems for his college journal, and in 1878 a volume of his maturest verses was published under the auspices of some of his college associates, with the modest title, "Lines in the Sand." This first book won for him some distinguished attention. "Thor: A Lyrical Drama," was published two years later. It is the product of a bold imagination. "Lyrics and Satires" appeared in 1883. The work com prising this volume is of uneven merit, the satires being particularly unsatisfactory to the author. The book is marked by bold and independent sentiment and strong poetic execution. It was the medium for bringing Mr. Day prominently into notice. Mr. Day's latest poetic volume, "Poems,"