AT MOUNT DESERT.

THE grasses with sweet hardihood have crept
On slow, soft feet out to the very verge,
All unaffrighted by the thundering serge;
The mists have gathered, and the fogs have wept-
A thousand winters over them have slept,

Yet greener still and greener they emerge
From every storm, and patiently they urge
Their fond excuse. On rocks below are swept
Fragments of wreck. The wrathful waves recede
Into the sullen bulk of beryl brine.
The storm is spent, belovéd; only heed

That glad break in the lowering sky! Ah, mine Forever! This means life to me-cliffs, sea, Surge, storm, brave grasses, breaking skyand thee!

MEMORY.

So true, the matchless rose that shed
Its passionate fragrance yesternight,
Half-sensed, unvalued,-now, alas,
Seems doubly dear, since it is dead.
And never any equals quite
That perfect bloom which memory has.
-Absent: To J-

ZENITH.

The sunny summits beckon, we must climb.
One breath of heaven makes braver lungs for aye.
One flash from the Eternal rends the clay,
And leaves transformed the irk of flesh and time.
-Zenith.

LOVE.

I lived on, not once foretasting The glad moment toward me hasting; Sooth, the herald of salvation was the faint light of a star:

Heaven's first court on earth a manger, Ah, Belovéd, is it stranger That upon us, unforewarnéd, dawned love's dazzling avatar?

-Lionel to Lorain.

UNSUNG.

Ah, my dead songs, the songs I might have sung!
What alien service claimed my faithless tongue?
The world's unworthy wage to me seemed good,-
Ah, my dead songs, it was the price of blood.
Who knows what glorious message God had sent,
Had he found one devoted instrument!

-Unsung.

THOMAS S. COLLIER.

Tail to be familiar to the reader, as his produc

HE name of Thomas S. Collier can hardly

tions both in prose and verse have during the past fifteen years frequently appeared in the leading periodicals and papers of this country. While an ingenious writer of short stories it is as a poet that Mr. Collier has won his widest reputation. The Atlantic, the Century Magazine, the Youth's Companion, and other publications of that ilk have given his fancies a printed form, and more than one of his poems, by constant reprinting and by the fact of finding a place in collections, has become one of those familiar poems that everybody knows. This is particularly true of his "Cleopatra Dying," which as a companion piece to Lytie's well-known “Anthony," has followed it side by side in many collections of verse. Still another poem of Mr. Collier's, entitled "Sacrilege," which first appeared in the Youth's Companion, has been so often reprinted that it might almost claim a continuous publication in our newspapers. He is perhaps at his best in some poem of occasion, like "In Pace," a memorial of the men who fell in the massacre in Fort Griswold, Groton Heights, Connecticut, September 6, 1781. To this class, and displaying the same conspicuous merit, belongs the poem which Mr. Collier wrote for the unveiling ceremonies of the statue recently erected by the State of Connecticut to commemorate the heroic achievement of Major John Mason and his comrades. Somewhat different in vein, perhaps not as widely known as the poems mentioned, but displaying to the best advantage the skill and technique of the writer, is the exquisite sonnet entitled, "Not Lost," contributed by Mr. Collier to "A Masque of Poets," a collection of some few years ago which included all of our best known poets; and in this brief summing up of his most familiar poems one would not care to omit "The Forgotten Books," published in Mr. Matthews's excellent collection entitled, "Ballads of Books."

Mr. Collier was born in New York City Nov. 14, 1842. He went to sea when he was fifteen years old; entered the American Navy at an early age. He was on the ship that opened the Japanese ports to commerce, and on that which brought the Japanese embassy back. He served in the navy all through our civil war and was retired in 1883. Since 1866 he has made his home in New London, Conn.

Mr. Collier is the Secretary of the New London County Historical Society, and has taken a deep interest in the collection and preservation of many

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valuable colonial documents, which, but for his watchfulness, would have been lost. He is a book lover and a book collector. His library is a most interesting and valuable one, containing many rare and out-of-the-way volumes. The collector's instinct has carried him outside of the field of literature. He is a numismatist of reputation, and possesses a valuable collection of coins and medals, while the walls of his study are adorned with rare bits of old China. Mr. Collier has a volume of poems prepared for the press which will be published soon.

SACRILEGE.

BESIDE the wall, and near the massive gate

Of the great temple in Jerusalem,

The legionary, Probus, stood, elate,

His eager clasp circling a royal gem.

It was an offering made by some dead king Unto the great Jehovah, when the sword Amid his foes had mown a ghastly ring,

W. L.

Helped by the dreaded Angel of the Lord.
There, on his rival's crest, among the slain,
Through the red harvest it had clearly shone,
Lighting the grimness of the sanguine plain
With splendors that had glorified a throne.
Above the altar of God's sacred place,

A watchful star, it lit the passing years,
With radiance falling on each suppliant's face,
Gleaning alike in love's and sorrow's tears.
Till swept the war-tide through the sunlit vales
Leading from Jordan, and the western sea,
And the fierce host of Titus filled the gales
With jubilant shouts, and songs of victory.

Then came the day when over all the walls

The Romans surged, and Death laughed loud and high;

And there was wailing in the palace halls,
And sound of lamentations in the sky.

Torn from its place, it lay within the hand

Of Probus, whose keen sword had rent a way, With rapid blows, amid the priestly band

Whose piteous prayers moaned through that dreadful day.

And there, beside the wall, he stopped to gaze
Upon the fortune that would give his life

The home and rest that come with bounteous days,
And bring reward for toil, and warlike strife.
There was no cloud in all heaven's lustrous blue,
Yet suddenly a red flash cleft the air,
And the dark shadow held a deeper hue,-

A dead man, with an empty hand, lay there.

CLEOPATRA DYING.

SINKS the sun below the desert,
Golden glows the sluggish Nile;
Purple flame crowns sphynx and temple,
Lights up every ancient pile
Where the old gods now are sleeping;

Isis and Osiris great!

Guard me, help me, give me courage
Like a Queen to meet my fate!

"I am dying, Egypt, dying!" Let the Cæsar's army comeI will cheat him of his glory,

Though beyond the Styx I roam. Shall he drag this beauty with him While the crowd his triumph sings? No, no, never! I will show him What lies in the blood of kings.

Though he hold the golden scepter,
Rule the Pharaohs' sunny land,
Where old Nilus rolls resistless,
Through the sweeps of silvery sand,
He shall never say I met him
Fawning, abject, like a slave-
I will foil him, though to do it
I must cross the Stygian wave.

Oh, my hero, sleeping, sleeping-
Shall I meet you on the shore
Of Plutonian shadows? Shall we
In death meet, and love once more?
See, I follow in your footsteps-
Scorn the Cæsar and his might;
For your love I will leap boldly

Into realms of death and night.

Down below the desert sinking,

Fades Apollo's brilliant car, And from out the distant azure

Breaks the bright gleam of a star; Venus, Queen of Love and Beauty, Welcomes me to death's embrace, Dying free, proud and triumphant, The last sovereign of my race.

Dying! dying! I am coming,

Oh, my hero, to your arms: You will welcome me, I know it

Guard me from all rude alarms. Hark! I hear the legions coming,

Hear their cries of triumph swell; But, proud Cæsar, dead I scorn you, Egypt-Antony-farewell!

39

THE FORGOTTEN BOOKS.

HID by the garret's dust, and lost
Amid the cobwebs wreathed above.
They lie, these volumes that have cost
Such wrecks of hope, and waste of love.

The theologian's garnered lore

Of scripture text, and words divine;
And verse, that to some fair one bore
Thoughts that like fadeless stars would shine;

The grand-wrought epics, that were born
From mighty throes of heart and brain,
Here rest, their covers all unworn,

And all their pages free from stain.

Here lie the chronicles that told

Of man, and his heroic deedsAlas! The words once "writ in gold," Are tarnished so that no one reads.

And tracts that smote each other hard, While loud the friendly plaudits rang, All animosities discard,

Where old moth-eaten garments hang.

The heroes that were made to strut

In tinsel on "life's" mimic stage,
Found, all too soon the deepening rut
Which kept them slient in the page;

And heroines, whose loveless plight
Should wake the sympathetic tear,

In volumes somber as the night
Sleep on through each succeeding year.

Here Phillis languishes forlorn,

And Strephon waits beside his flocks, And early huntsmen wind the horn, Within the boundaries of a box.

Here, by the irony of fate,

Beside the "peasant's humble board,"
The monarch "flaunts his robes of state,"
And spendthrifts find the miser's hoard.

Days come and go, and still we write,
And hope for some far happier lot
Than that our work should meet this blight:
And yet, some books must be forgot.

WHEN THE ROSES COME.

THE red rose blooms by the tumbling wall, The blush rose bends by the open gateThe mocking-bird, with his low, clear call, Sings on, though the hour is late;

The yellow rose like a star shines out,

The white rose sways like a wan, sweet ghostThe beetles boom, and the marshes shout

The joy of their living host.

The red rose burns with a crimson glow,
Like wine that gleams when the blood is warm
And brings vague dreams of the long ago,

When the world was wild with storm; When a stalwart knight with lance at rest Drove swift through the battle's angry tide, With a red rose bound to his helmet's crest, And there in the carnage died.

The blush rose tells of a distant time
When the Persian groves were loud with song;
And camel-bells made a merry chime,

Where the desert paths grew long.
When a love-lorn maiden lingering strayed,
Waiting for one who had grown a-cold,
Till the rose and she at rest were laid

In the garden's sodden mould.

The yellow rose, with its heavy breath,
Recalls wide forests and dim lagoons,
Where the loathsome serpents watch for death.
In the light of tropic moons;

And ruins, massive and grim and vast,
In silent grandeur a vigil keep,
Where the giant kings of a mighty past
Lie cold in a dreamless sleep.

The white rose pictures a vision dim

Of aisle, and transept, and sculptured saint, Where the dying echoes of a hymn

In the far, cool distance faint,-
And shining out, where the arches bar
The purple gloom of the rounded dome,
A face that glows like a glorious star,
Set deep in a sea of foam.

The red rose tosses its crimson spray;
The blush rose falls in a fragrant rain;
The mocking-bird, where the cool leaves sway,
Sings on with his low refrain:

The yellow rose with the dew is wet,

The white rose-where has the white rose

flown?

Ah, yes, I made it a coronet

For a great love all my own.

ACCURST.

DEVOID of love, bereft of hope, Companioned by a grim despair, He roams where blinded spirts grope O'er deserts hot and bare.

41

A

ANNA BOYNTON AVERILL.

NNA BOYNTON AVERILL has an enviable place among New England poets. Whenever her song is heard, we listen with an interest, heightened, if possible, by the atmosphere of seclusion and mystery which surrounds the singer. To the many who would gladly know something of the personality of Miss Averill, it is a pleasant task to present a few biographical notes.

She was born in the town of Alton, Maine, February 25, 1843, the eldest of a family of ten children. Her father, George Averill, was at that time a lumberman on the Penobscot river, but later became a farmer, and has for some years resided in the town of Foxcroft, Maine, on the place known to the friends of his poet-daughter as "Sunny Slope."

At four years of age, while playing with other children, Anna had a fall which permanently injured her spine. Years of suffering followed, checking her growth and leaving their marks on her form, but by the time she reached maturity, her health was fully restored and she became the right hand of the household. Her mother was for twenty years totally blind, having never looked upon the face of her youngest child, Florence. This daughter of her darkness was always tenderly devoted to her afflicted parent, and was known in the family as "Mother's Eyes." But if the youngest daughter became "mother's eyes," the eldest filled the place of "mother" herself to the large family of boys and girls; and her life has been one of constant domestic care. The love of books, however, grew with her growth, and these soon became her dearest companions, if we except the forest trees and birds, who were her first teachers. She soon learned that she found her happiest expression in poetry, and sent her first contributions to the Portland Transcript. Her talent was immediately perceived and encouraged by the editors of that paper; a new world, that of literary recognition and comradeship, opened before her, and if she had ever felt the want of wider social life, she now found it, unsolicited and unexpected. The Atlantic, Lippincott's and other magazines published gems of her poetry which were widely copied and grafted into numerous collections both of music and verse.

While living in such seclusion that few of her own townspeople were acquainted with the quiet and busy little woman, in the world outside many were listening for the utterances of her graceful and original thought and inquiring where she could be found. To this day, however, she chooses

to be known only by her written words, and very few are admitted to her personal acquaintance.

The word which best describes her face is serenity, and it applies to her character as well. Cheerful, calm, far-seeing with the inner sight of the spirit, life is sweeter and brighter to her than to myriads more favored by worldly fortune. Her poetry has a fine and penetrating tone, and it has also that quality of suppressed and unexpended power which is the sure sign of genius.

She has not yet gathered her scattered poems in a volume. F. L. M.

BIRCH STREAM.

AT NOON, within the dusty town,
Where the wild river rushes down
And thunders hoarsely all day long,
I think of thee my hermit stream,
Low singing in thy summer dream,

Thine idle, sweet, old tranquil song.

Northward Katahdin's chasmed pile
Looms through thy low, long, leafy aisle,
Eastward Olamon's summit shines;
And I upon thy shadowy shore,
The dreamful, happy child of yore,
Worship before mine olden shrines.
Again the sultry noontide hush
Is sweetly broken by the thrush,
Whose clear bell rings and dies away
Beside thy banks in coverts deep,
Where nodding buds of orchis sleep
In dusk, and dream not it is day.

Again the wild cow-lily floats
Her golden-freighted, tented boats

In thy cool coves of softened gloom,
O'ershadowed by the whispering reed,
And purple plumes of pickerel-weed,

And meadow, sweet in tangled bloom.

The startled minnows dart in flocks
Beneath thy glimmering, amber rocks,
If but a zephyr stirs the brake;
The silent swallow swoops, a flash
Of light, and leaves, with dainty plash,
A ring of ripples in her wake.

Without, the land is hot and dim,
The level fields in languor swim,
Their stubble grasses brown as dust.
And all along the upland lanes,
Where shadeless noon oppressive reigns,
Dead roses wear their crowns of rust.