I mind the day he was married, an' I danced at the weddin', too;

JULIA P. BOYNTON.

I its potentiality, in which

T IS rare, indeed, that a life which has but just

An' I kissed the bride, sweet Maggie-daughter of Ben McGrew;

I mind how they set up housekeepin', two young, poor, happy fools;

When Jim's only stock was a heavy truck an' four Kentucky mules.

Well, they lived along contented, weth their little joys an' cares,

An' every year a baby come, an' twice they come in pairs;

'Till the house was full of children, weth their shoutin' and playin' and squalls,

An' their singin' and laughin' an' cryin' made Bedlam wethin its walls.

An' Jim, he seemed to like it, an' he spent all his evenin's at home:

He said it was full of music an' light, an' peace from pit to dome.

He joined the church, an' he used to pray that his heart might be kept from sin —

The stumblin'est prayin'-but heads and hearts used to bow when he'd begin.

So, they lived along in that way, the same from day to day,

With plenty of time for drivin' work, and a little time for play.

An' growin' around 'em the sweetest girls and the

liveliest, manliest boys,

'Till the old gray heads of the two old folks was crowned with the homeliest joys.

Eh? Come to my story? Well, that's all. They're livin' just like I said.

Only two of the girls is married, an' one of the boys is dead.

An' they're honest, an' decent an' happy, an' the very best Christians I know,

Though I reckon in brilliant comp'ny they'd be voted a leetle slow.

Oh, you're pressed for time-excuse you? Sure, I'm sorry I kept you so long;

Good by. Now he looked kind o' bored-like, an' I reckon that I was wrong

To tell sech a commonplace story of two sech com

monplace lives;

But we can't all git drunk an' gamble an' fight, an' run off with other men's wives.

has not been exchanged for disappointing fruition, and whose dreams may yet prove substantial verities, should have already won its way to public recognition.

Miss Boynton first looked upon the fields over which she has cast the garment of her own beautiful song scarcely more than a quarter century ago. In the little village of South Byron, in Western New York, she and the sister Jean, to whom "Lines and Interlines" is inscribed, led a more than ordinarily free and happy childhood. At fifteen Miss Boynton and her elder sister entered Ingham University, at Le Roy, N. Y., where they both remained a year, spending the subsequent one in preparation for Wellesley College. The sisters entered this institution, only to be summoned home because of domestic bereavement. The education so broken was again resumed for several years, mainly at Nyack-on-the-Hudson. The greater part of two winters was spent in New York engaged at studies in art, for which Miss Boynton has marked aptitude; then followed a season in London, as a guest in the home of a popular clergyman. Plans were forming in the spring of 1888 for an extended tour upon the continent, when she was again summoned home, because of the serious illness of her mother, and her place since then has been mostly at the side of this loved and loving parent.

Miss Boynton is possessed of fine, scholarly tastes, with that critical acumen which seldom belongs to youth. The conventional poetic temperament is not hers; she is, happily, endowed with an even disposition, free from nervous exaltation or depression, with practical abilities which are a marvel to those who only think of her as a poet. It is in the realm of nature that Miss Boynton is most at home; the voices she listened to in childhood, with their occult messages, have found revelation through the poet's song. The "Tragedy of a Field" is both picture and poem; only one who had looked with love and pity upon the scene could have so sympathetically reproduced its inanimate woe. Miss Boynton is, happily, so situated that she is able to cultivate the muse at her leisure. J. W. K.

THE "SOLE GOOD."

"Le seul bien que me reste au monde

Est d'avoir quelquefois pleuré."-A. DE MUSSET. NOT to have won renown, to have loved and

laughed,

Not to have wished, and gained what was desired, Not to have dreamed, and struggled, and aspired, Not to have grasped the cup of life and quaffed Its bright best drops, but to have drained the bowl, Only this good is left thee, O my Soul,

To have some times wept! O great World-heart, O Heart

Of all the Human, cry ye not, Amen? Your quick tears follow where the poet's pen Ran falteringly; what wealth would force you part With the wide prospect seen in true relief From the lone awful summit of your grief?

To have sometimes wept! O sweet World-bond, O Bond

Of all the Human! Even those holy eyes

That looked on God and Heaven were not too wise

For weeping, but their tears fell fast and fond

When Lazarus died; and grief from age to age Has blurred with passionate kisses that one page. Bliss hath its revelations; Love hath swept

The soul up from its playthings to the true Full, only Life. But thanks as deep are due For this dear blessing, to have sometimes wept.

INTRODUCTION FOR A BOOK OF POEMS.

I SEND you from me, and I have no care:
Go left or right, go east or south or west;
The heart you leave, you leave all unoppressed

By doubt or fear or longing or despair.

I have no dream of laurel, hear no blare

Of visionary brass; Time's ruthless test

I dread not, nor the long Lethean rest;
Hold steadfast eyes, unvexed by gloom or glare.

Patient of praise and careless of renown,
At the world's mart I barter smile for frown;
The censor's shaft leaves no resentful sting;
My heart repeats its steadfast-Ye are wrong!
I know the vital ecstasy of song,

I know that somehow, somewhere, I shall sing!

AFTER READING A VOLUME OF CONTEMPORARY VERSE.

I.

WHAT do we then, audacious, who presume Where worthier footfalls sowed the earth with stars?

And shall we echo Homer with his wars? Or follow Dante through the nether gloom? Or, with one later, heap a favored tomb

With lyric largess? or, forgetting scars, Sing Nature only? (Ah! such music jars Despite its sweetness.) Shall we find no room For verses that shall stimulate and rouse

To nobler love and living? Drown the cry Of art for art's sake; all humanity With one great voice the outrage disallows. A spiritual Tyrtæus rather, I, Thundering of battle to the souls that drowse.

II.

For we are not so strong we may disdain
The blossom-wreathen prop of poesy;
Such succor do we sorely need, whereby
To climb to that far height we would attain.
Beneath the cold autocracy of brain

33

The slight, shy soul would slowly droop and die; Truths that all science fails to bring more nigh Shine out resplendent, by a dream made plain. Give me to send some trenchant message out,

Such as have braced my faith and fired my heart, Praising meek patience, or dispelling doubt, Purveying solace for some human smart; Hearing which, some one shall rise up with speed To fix a fluent impulse into deed.

THE TRAGEDY OF A FIELD. THERE was a field lay glad in early dew; Where, arin in arm with the tall grasses, grew Clover and crimson cockle, and a few

Rough thistles, which, since heaven their ostracism

Confirmed not, but poured out her blessed chrism
Of sun and rain on whatso flower did sue
With lifted lip the field might not eschew;

Wild mustard, like a spot of fallen sun,
So yellow you would never notice one
Gold butterfly, or say they fed upon
Its petals for the color of their wings;
These and a host of other sweet wild things,-
Convolvulus which the fence did overrun,
And many a daisy, white-frilled like a nun.

And in the midst a streamlet did divide
The field's green lips with melody. Its tide
Scarcely the bobolink's morning bath supplied;
But the wild iris, for the stream's sole sake,
Blue with her favors all the banks did make
Sleek minnows in the pools did dart and glide,
And buttercups leaned bright from either side.
The merry swallows made the tall grass sway
Beneath their glancing wings. A dim, green way
Full many a sparrow knew, to where, some day,

Instead of silent eggs within the nest, Four precious fledgelings should reward his quest. A meadow-lark sang loud, and set his spray A-tremble with his passionate essay.

A field lay wounded; its embroidered weft
Rent in a thousand rags; outraged, bereft
Of bloom, its cherished nests laid bare to theft;
All such small secrets hid so lovingly,
Told rudely to the far, unpitying sky;
And every spray of fragrant clover cleft
Asunder,-not one crimson cockle left.

Yet, field, charge not the reaper's hand with wrath,
To thy life's purpose led no other path,-
Seed-time and sunshine, sorrow and the swath.
Still mercy waits in many a sudden burst
Of healing rain upon thee,-faint, athirst,
And dying. Lo, beyond the sickle's scath
The chastened promise of the aftermath.

DIVIDED.

I CANNOT reach thee; we are far, so far Apart, who are so dear!

Love, be it so;

Else we might press so close we should not grow. One doth deny even this so sweet a bar For fear our souls' true shape should suffer mar. Ah, surface-sundered, yet do we not know A hidden union in the deeps below? An intertwining where the strong roots are? So husbandmen plant trees, Sweetheart, a space Between. Complete the figure. High in air

After the trees are grown, their spreading boughs Reach forth and mingle. In some far glad place, When thou and I are straight and tall and fair, We shall clasp hands again,-if God allows.

LIMITED.

O LOVE, this cup of mine is all too shallow,
Wherein thy generous vintage I must bear!
O Life, full half thine acreage lies fallow

Where I can never drive my ardent share!
My eager hands so tremble that they spill it,
That priceless wine,-alas for haste! but then,
Repentant tears run down again to fill it,
Till all the scanty chalice brims again.

My own small plot yields blossoms in abundance, And wheat enough to serve my life-long leaven;

I plough and prune, and check the weed's redundance,

And furnish timely drink denied of heaven.

Yet o'er the sunny tilth beyond my hedges
My eyes will wander with a strong desire;
And, but my Master showed my solemn pledges,
I should stray off, forgetful of my hire.

From the bright pageant of the eastern heaven The lordly hours, whereby our zeal is pent, Rush, with their glowing coursers overdriven, Toward the late revel of the occident.

Ah! never one a moment stays or lingers,

Though we do throng their path with mad desires, Grasp at their dizzy wheels with frenzied fingers, Wash with our bravest blood their ruthless tires.

I think sometime my soul will cast this langour,
The bondage-bred, and rise with thunderings;
Burst all the golden links in noble anger,
And fling the fragments from her liberate wings.

I think sometime my soul the cup will shatter,Impatient of its hindrance,-by the force

Of passionate thirst,-and, as the clay sherds scatter,

Will press with bare lips to the very Source.

WILD TIGER-LILY.

ISOLATE in her conscious grandeur, creature of a royal blood,

She doth rule,-the one unrivaled Cleopatra of the Wood.

Something in her regal stature,

In her fierce and fervid nature,

Brings to mind a vivid vision of the Lady of the Nile.

How the splendor of her presence, how her suddenflashing smile

Glorifies the slumbrous spaces of the dusky forest aisle!

And a face of Orient oval, olive-browed, and midnight-eyed,

Looks from flowing, flame-hued draperies in its dark, imperial pride.

While a figure fancy fashions, faultless in its mold and mien,

Supple, sinuous, seductive as some tawny jungle queen.

Then, as though a gathering tempest smote athwart Eolian wires

All a-thrill with pride and passion, sad as death, a voice inquires:

"Do you wonder at my Roman? do you marvel how I died?"