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SUSAN MARR SPALDING.

ORN in the beautiful town of Bath, Maine,

BORN

where her early life was passed, she was educated at one of the best New England seminaries. After the death of her parents, which occurred when she was quite young, she removed to the City of New York and became a member of the family of her uncle, a clergyman, and there had the advantages of refined and cultured surroundings. She was married early in life to a gentleman of intelligence and literary tastes. Residing a few years in New York, they removed to Philadelphia, where, shortly after, her husband died. She still continued living there, alternating between it and her native town. She has taken up many and varied subjects, and all that was of value in them she made her own-a refined nature with a fastid

ious taste, rejecting everything else. She is a woman of many accomplishments, and great simplicity of manner, gifted with rare conversational powers, with a remarkable choice of language and grace of expression. Simple and entirely devoid of affectation, there is an atmosphere of delicacy and refinement diffused around her, the charm of which is felt by all, as the many delightful hours spent with her, her numerous friends can attest. A strong personality, warm-hearted and generous, and thoroughly unselfish, has caused her to be lovingly regarded by all who know her.

There is in her poems an admirable grace and freedom, and an attractive reverence, delicacy of perception and beauty of expression. She is tender, passionate, refined and intense-a truly artistic temperament. A singular charm pervades her verses, with their exquisite art and deep, poetic pathos. It is, perhaps, as a sonnet writer that Mrs. Spalding will find the highest recognition and her most enduring fame. Artistically considered, they are very nearly beyond criticism, perfect in execution, and of exquisite finish. This peculiar and difficult form of poetical composition has always possessed for her a fascinating charm. A careful study of its artistic requirements and a conscientious and painstaking habit of composition have resulted so successfully that she is considered by many competent critics as one of the best sonnet writers of the day, triumphantly refuting the oftrepeated assertion that the feminine mind cannot achieve a perfect sonnet. Aside from the value of the artistic expression, workmanship and thought, a subtle poetic essence pervades them all; they are poems in every essential quality and of the highest sense. Their peculiar charm will especially endear them to every lover of the sonnet. H. D. N.

FATE.

Two shall be born the whole wide world apart, And speak in different tongues, and have no thought

Each of the other's being, and no heed;
And these o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death;
And all unconsciously shape every act
And bend each wandering step to this one end:
That, one day, out of darkness, they shall meet
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.

And two shall walk some narrow way of life
So nearly side by side, that should one turn
Ever so little space to the left or right
They needs must stand acknowledged face to face.
And yet, with wistful eyes they never meet,
With groping hands that never clasp, and lips
Calling in vain to ears that never hear,
They seek each other all their weary days
And die unsatisfied-and this is Fate!

A WINTER ROSE.

O WINTER ROSE, by what enchanting power
Was wrought thy shining miracle of bloom?
Who hid from thee the golden, glowing hour
That turns to Summer this December gloom?
What thrilling impulse, like a hidden fire,
Melted the snows wherein thy heart doth hide?
What tender memory, what dear desire

For the fond Sun, thy lover long denied?
Haply the June forgot thee when she cast

Her wealth of riotous bloom o'er hill and field; Now the poor, beggared earth doth hold thee fast, Like the last gold a spendthrift's purse may yield.

O sweet, wise flower! Thine is a happier doom, Though frosts may blight, than Summer blossom knows.

Better be one rose in a world of gloom,

Than 'midst a million roses, but one rose.

O heart, so near love's Winter time, take heed!

Spend thou not all thy wealth at Summer noon; Keep thou one last, fair flower till time of need To turn thy drear December into June.

MY FAMILIAR.

I CALLED him "Aspiration" when he came
And whispered softly in my willing ear:
"O, foolish soul, why dost thou linger here,
Wasting thy gifts in sordid toil and tame

That brings thee neither love, nor gold, nor fame?
The path to power and pleasure lieth clear;
Leave this low work to meaner hands and aim
For loftier duties and a nobler sphere.”
He took my hand, and where he bade I went,
Till youth and strength and happiness were fled;
And only when my years were nearly spent

In restless longings, and when hope was dead
I saw the wan, sad face of him who led,
And knew at last his true name, "Discontent."

MY BROTHER'S KEEPER.

I CALLED him faint of heart, in spirit poor;
I said, "O brother, for all such as thee
The world is full of snares and subtlety!
How little art thou fitted to endure

The ills thy weakness brings! Let my strength be
Thy constant shield. My vision swift and sure
Shall pierce the darkest depths of every lure
About our paths. I'd lead thee; lean on me!"
But when with subtlest art temptation wove
Round our unwary souls her fairest spell;
When lust of power and wealth, and love as well,
Their keenest shafts against dear Honor drove-
When in her cause I and my brother strove -
Behold! he conquered grandly-but I fell!

THE SINGERS.

ONE, blind, has taught how beauty should be sung;
One, deaf, all silence tuned to music sweet;
From one who wandered homeless in the street
A rapturous, deathless song of home was wrung.
How many a pæan of victory has sprung

From pallid lips, grown nerveless with defeat?
How many empty hearts must sadly greet
Their own love-songs on happier lovers' tongue?
As some rare fabrics are in darkness wrought
Lest light should mar the dainty web, so, too,
The poet, with a golden thread of thought,
Weaves in the shade his fancies fine and true.
So from his sorrow is your pleasure brought,
The joy he hath not doth he give to you!

A DESIRE.

LET me not lay the lightest feather's weight
Of duty upon Love. Let not my own,
The breath of one reluctant kiss be blown
Betwen our hearts. I would not be the gate
That bars, like some inexorable fate,

The portals of thy life; that says, “Alone Through me shall any joy to thee be known;" Rather the window, fragrant early and late

With thy sweet clinging thoughts, that grow and twine

Around me like some bright and blooming vine; Through which the sun shall shed his wealth on thee

In golden showers; through which thou may'st look out,

Exulting in all beauty, without doubt Or fear, or shadow of regret from me.

AN ANTIQUE INTAGLIO.

GREAT cities that defied Time's power are dust,
And mighty temples ruins; yet this gem,
Seeming a fragile thing, outliveth them.
Its beauty bears no trace of Time's keen thrust,
Undimmed the marvelous luster that doth trust
To none its secret; every delicate line
Glows with immortal freshness and divine,
That fears no ravage of decay or rust.
How infinite is art! A magic glass

This tiny, chiseled disk becomes to me; Greece and her glories rise and shine and pass

Before my dazzled eyes; then fade to wan And spectral shores, where the Ægean Sea Guards the lone ruins of the Parthenon.

A VICTORY.

For all life's joys my proud heart uttereth
No vain desire. For, since I am denied
The one great bliss, I will have nought beside.
Yet I am fain to conquer life with death;

And so, O Love, when I am done with pride,
Come thou and kiss to stillness my last breath;
Let the last voice I hear be thine, that saith
"I love thee!" so shall I die satisfied.
Then, when on my dead face some sad eyes dwell,
Some loving hearts make bitter moan, and some,
More loving yet, smile, saying, "It is well!"
How will all marvel at the sweetness come

So strangely to my lips, not knowing this:
It is the radiance left by thy last kiss!

STORM SIGNALS.

GRAY clouds flit to and fro above the sea,
Pale phantoms of wrecked ships that seek in vain
Forgotten ports. Back from the darkening main
A hundred white sails to the harbor flee
As frightened children to their mother's knee.
Deep calleth unto deep with cries of pain;
While the imprisoned billows strive and strain
Wildly against their rocky boundary.

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The rising fog its mighty shadow flings, Quenching the last foam-light that marks the bar; The wild winds rave; the storm-flag from its spar Weaves a fierce menace to all living things Save one undaunted bird, whose flickering wings Gleam through the darkness like a falling star.

TWO SINGERS.

SOMETIMES, dear Love, you murmur, "O, could I But snare with words the thoughts that flutter through

The thickets of my heart! Could I, like you, Bind with sweet speech the moods of earth and sky;

Or turn to song a smile, a tear, a sigh!
Alas! My springs of thought but serve to do
The mill-stream's common work. I may but view
Afar the heights of song to which you fly."
For me, I shape from all my heart's best gold
These skill-less cups of verse. They have, I know,
No grace save this,-unto your lips they hold
Love's dearest draught. I hear your praise,
but, lo!

One smile of yours, one kiss all-eloquent,
Shames my poor songs to silence. Be content!

DEATH'S FIRST LESSON.

THREE sad, strange things already death hath shown

To me who lived but yesterday. My love, Who loved to kiss my hands and lips above All other joys,-whose heart upon my own So oft has throbbed,-fears me, now life has flown, And shuddering turns away. The friend who strove

My trust to win, and all my faith did prove, Sees, in my pale, still form, a bar o'erthrown To some most dear desire. While one who spake No fond and flattering word of love or praise, Who only cold and stern reproof would give To all my foolish, unconsidered ways

This one would glad have died that I might live, This heart alone lies broken for my sake.

LOVE.

In the heart where Love doth dwell,
Palace, cot or prison cell,

Every care with joy doth blend,
Toil is welcomed as a friend.
Sorrow's face a smile doth wear,
Death the name of Peace doth bear.
Grief may come, but all is well
In the heart where Love doth dwell.
-Love's Presence.

STEPHEN HENRY THAYER.

UPON

PON a hill overlooking the Hudson, where it broadens into the Tappaan Zee, stands an Elizabethan cottage which is ideal even among the many attractive homes on that noble river; a house which fits, with a sense of homelikeness, into the serene beauty of its surroundings. Around lies the landscape which Irving loved so well,Sleepy Hollow, with its quaint Dutch church and its "drowsy, dreamy influence which seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere;" the village, stretching away towards Sunnyside; the primeval, undesecrated forest, and the Pocantico, forever trolling its mysterious song.

It is not strange that the poet whose home this is should bend often to listen to "the murmuring laughters, soft and low," which "elude the alien ears of men." Born at New Ipswich, in the hills of New Hampshire, December 16, 1839, his heritage was not alone the gift to feel the beauty of woodland, the sensuous music of the song bird, but also the Puritan instinct which sees in the leaf, and hears in the note, the inspiration of him without whom nothing is. Indeed, if I were to designate that which seems to me the dominant impulse pervading the poems of Stephen Henry Thayer, I should say it is a restful, religious feeling, or, perhaps more properly, aspiration, rather than the more apparent affection for nature which usually dictates the theme. The bells of Nyack, faintly tolling across the star-lighted sea, come laden with a hymn.

"Songs of Sleepy Hollow," published in 1886, is a selection of poems which had appeared prior to that date in various leading publications. It was favorably received both in America and England. Frequent contributions since that time now aggregate enough for another volume. Nearly all Thayer's poems are subjective, reflective, descriptive; many are in the minor key. They have a quiet restraint, a simple lesson to tell, a message from a soul who loves the things that are good and pure and true. Various critical articles in the Andover Review and elsewhere have shown an ability to handle prose as well as verse, and a power of discriminating and appreciative analysis. The old Appleton Academy of New Ipswich was a famous school in its day, and a typical New England institution. Here, in 1858, Thayer was the valedictorian of his class. Facing the world with Yankee resoluteness, and with a business acumen not lost in his love for books, he commenced a preliminary clerkship in a counting room in Boston, but after two years went to New York,

where he spent six years in a banking house. In 1864 he was admitted to the New York Stock Exchange, and, in 1865, in connection with his present partner, established the banking and *brokerage house which for a quarter of a century has enjoyed undiminished prosperity, and is now one of the oldest firms in Wall Street, if not the oldest. He removed to Tarrytown in 1867, where he has since lived. A portion of each day is given to the details of a complex and successful business, and to the affairs of the corporations of which he is a director; but it needs no ghost to tell us that he counts as golden only those hours spent in his ample library or under the cathedral arches of the forest. He is a member, and treasurer, of the Authors' Club of New York, and a member of the Players' Club, lately founded by Edwin Booth. He is also prominently identified with the Fortnightly Club of Tarrytown, an organization of local renown. C. H. P.

THE HOME OF "THE POCANTICO." Down from the cliffs of Ossining,

Into the hollows below,

Vexed as with alternate passion and pain,
Flows the river Pocantico.
Surging, eddying, veering in vain,

It dances and delves, a thing of life;
It sleeps in pools, it bickers in strife,
And turns on itself again and again
Over the cliffs of Ossining,

Into the hollows below.

Far from the cliffs of Ossining,
Out of the hollows below,
Down through fallow and glen it glides,
"Heavy with sighs, as loth to go;
Hushed in the haunted wood it hides,
Lonesome for love of its springs afar
Up in the hills, where the evening star
Drops fire-threads over silvery slides-
Down on the cliffs of Ossining,

Down in the hollows below.

O for the cliffs of Ossining!

O for the hollows below!

The stones uprise in watery guise,
And build their mimic bars arow;
The drift-wood rallies, yeomanwise,

As if to stay the helpless river

That downward flows forever and everThat whispers, and moans, and faintly cries, "O for the cliffs of Ossining!

O for the hollows below!"

Far from the cliffs of Ossining,

Far from the hollows below, It lags through marshy meadow and lea With leaden feet, and heart as slow, As if in dread of the thirsty sea

The sea that drinks and drinks for aye, Through all the centuries and a dayThe waters that flow eternally Down from the cliffs of Ossining, Down from the hollows below.

MIDSUMMER ODE TO INDOLENCE.

SWEET loiterer thou-O Indolence, Becalmed guest of soul and sense!

I crown thee as my happy chance, Thou easer of all circumstance. Too lax art thou to laugh or sigh,

Too listless with inert content
To ask the world for what, or why,

Or on whose mission thou art sent.

Unhappy questioners may haste,
With tireless word and will, to waste

Their prying craft on strange inquests;
Thou heedest not such stern behests-

Or grim philosophies, designed
To vex the current of the mind;

Thou hast no heart of bitterness,
Nor dost thou tax thee more or less
With yes or no; wise reasoners keep
In sufference just outside thy gate;
For sorrow thou might haply weep,

Or lightly mourn at darker fate.
Still, still thou hast no poignancy,
Nor passion, save in mild degree.

What'er betide, thou fain would gaze
With hermit's eyes on troubled ways,
Or stretch thy limbs, or sleep, or eat,
Or watch the trip of blithesome feet,

Or sit in drowsy aisles and dream
On summer days-entranced seem,
And hear the lapsing brooklet sing
To throstle on its wizard.wing,

And hear the austere note reply
From out the dizzy dome of sky,
Sufficed-though all the world be rife
With wakenings of death and life-

To hush thy tongue, to seal thine ear,
Or sing a song of careless cheer

To lounge in scented fields, to climb
The lower hills, to roam the vale,
Or watch the sunsets pale and pale,
Cumoved to span the heights sublime