I BRING the simple children of the field-
Lilies with tawny cheeks all crimson-pied;
The vagrant clans, that thriftless-seeming yield
Their scented secrets to the wind, yet hide
In dewy cups their subtler lore. More sweet

Than red-breast robin pipes, the strain they sing
Of youth and wayside lanes, where childish feet
Went glancing merrily through some dead spring.
Glad is the gift I bring at Love's behest,
The gypsy lilies of the wide-eyed West.

Lilies I bring-shy flowers that nodding grew
O'er river-beds, whereto the night-winds low
Cling odorous. Still droop these buds of blue
In tender dreams of the cool water's flow
Past gleaming crafts, among lone sunless nooks;
Of moonshine white athwart the bending trees;
Of scattered mists above brown, mottled brooks;
Of spring-time perfumes; summer's vanished bees.
A dawning hope beneath the starry crest
Of trysting lilies trembles on thy breast.

Lilies I bring that once by Nile's slow tide

From snowy censers 'neath a lucent moon
With faint, rare fragrance steeped the silence wide.
O stainless ones! The night-bird's broken tune
Falls 'mong thy pallid leaves. And fainter still
And sweeter than cold Dian's music clear
The night's far, failing murmurs, wildly thrill
Thy golden hearts. Love, pitying draw near!
An ended dream, unuttered, unexpressed,
With vestal lilies, mocks my hopeless quest.

Lilies I bring thee-languorous, passionate—
Neglected odalisques that scornful stand
Voiceless and proud, without the silent gate
That bars the dawn in some dim morning land.
'Gainst creamy chalices soft drifts the air

Of sun-kissed climes; and viols throb, and shine The twinkling feet of dancing girls, lithe, fair, Upbeating wafts of wasted yellow wine.

O fated flowers to hot lips fiercely pressed, The siren lilies of weird lands, unblessed. Stoop down, O Love--and nearer for I bear The phantom buds that ope for weary hands When toil is done. O fragrant blossoms, fair As shadowy asphodels, ye lean o'er lands

Wrapped in unchanging dusk. O cold and frail, From brows more waxen than your blooms, how light

Ye slip! Yet low, sweet chimes through your lips pale

Echo from heavenly shores. O flowers white,
Of realms celestial-Love's last gift and best!
The clustered lilies of perpetual rest.

A COUNTRY GARDEN.

419

This garden lone. Ah, would one might forget, beneath its spicery

And sweet moist shadows hid, the grave of Dorothy.

Methinks these should be birds to mount within the blue,

That loitering beside this trim-kept garden wall, Lean idly, clanking, merry spurs-these larkspurs tall.

Daffodil, wan and gray,

Phantom like, slipped away

Ere April morns were dead. (Ah, but old days were sweet).

Why, here's allysum, too, thick clustered at my feet,

And myrrh still grows in the self-same spot; and look, between

The canterbury bells, her mildewed eglantine!
Heigh, ho! four-o'-clocks wise,

Open your sleep-brimmed eyes!

O dragon fly, atilt 'mong bending jasmin sprays, Rover through distant realms, bide but a space with me;

For thee day-dawn yet waiteth in calm garden ways;

For me, for me, only the grave of Dorothy.

A

MRS. GEORGE ARCHIBALD.

PHYSICALLY slight and delicate woman, with

a profusion of brown hair, large blue eyes that are of the kind called “talking eyes;” an interesting, if not a beautiful face, active but not restless manners, like quicksilver in tin-foil, as though the spirit within was stronger than that which contains it, and you have what your eyes will tell you of Mrs. George Archibald Palmer, born Annie Campbell, and known so well to the reading world by the first two names of her husband.

Of course she is of Scotch ancestry; her name tells that. She has all the earnestness and intensity of purpose of that race, and their humor, enlivened and quickened by an infusion of Irish and Yankee blood. She was born in Elmira, N. Y., about thirty years ago, and with the exception of four years spent in the neighboring city of Ithaca during her childhood, she has always lived in the beautiful Chemung valley. Her literary life is but a reflection of her own every-day life, and one could almost build up the one from the other. Her first printed effort was achieved at the age of ten years, appearing in the Ithaca Journal, and receiving the commendation of the editor of that newspaper. Mrs. Archibald was an orphan at fourteen, and it is probable that her passionate love of children and tender care for them makes a large portion of her literary work arise from this lack of parental care and fondness in her own childhood. This deprivation led her naturally directly toward the care of children, and at sixteen she became a teacher in the public schools of Elmira, an avocation that she followed with the utmost success for ten years. Mrs. Archibald was married in September, 1883, and is the mother of two bright girls, of whom she is passionately fond, and who absorb a great share of her attention. The family live quietly but pleasantly, Mrs. Archibald's literary labors giving her little time to indulge in social amenities that await her at every turn could she accept them.

Mrs. Archibald has been an industrious worker. Disliking publicity, she wrote constantly under a great number of nom de plumes, adopting a new one when she began to be identified. Sometimes she had intervals of complete silence, distrustful of her powers and displeased with her efforts. On her marriage, however, she assumed the pen name, now so well known, and with it has won her place in the world of letters.

Mrs. Archibald has published "The Summerville Prize," a book for girls, and a charming little brochure, "Verses From a Mother's Corner," and another work is in prepartion of a similar character.

There is a sincere religious vein running through Mrs. Archibald's character that influences strongly her life and her works. Her only inheritance was a Scotch stiffness of purpose, and her gentle mother's influence, whose last words to her were the simple ones: "Be a good girl." The aspiration has been literally obeyed. Early in her girlhood Mrs. Archibald became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has ever continued active in its work and consistent with its teachings in her life.

A VISION.

PERCHANCE my thought was wide awake, Or I was dreaming, may be,

As I sat rocking to and fro,

My arms around my baby.

I felt along my cheek and throat
Her rosy fingers playing,

And stooped to kiss the sunny curls,
About her forehead straying.
The foolish rhymes of Mother Goose
In tune and time came springing
To lips, not made for song-and yet
My children like my singing.
And as I sang a mystic spell

Changed all the world completely-
Another woman singing sat,
And rocked her baby sweetly.
The woman's face-a look it wore
Like mine, and yet the rather,
'Twas like my baby's larger grown,
'Twas like my baby's father.
And as she, swaying, softly sang,
I saw some tear-drops falling;

I knew her thought, I knew her heart,
Her heart to mother calling.

A sudden passion filled my soul,
I longed to soothe the weeping;
My baby stirred upon my breast,
My baby gently sleeping!
The vision fled, yet well I know-

Though I was dreaming, maybe—
Far down the future sits my child
And rocks my baby's baby.

THE OLD HYMN.

TO-DAY, with quiet heart I heard,

A. T.

The prayer, the anthem and the psalm, And gently, on my spirit fell

The sweetness of the Sunday calm; Till, at the reading of the hymn, With sudden tears my eyes were dim.

That old, old hymn! Its sacred lines
Had fallen on my childish ears;
My life turned back, unhindered by
The stretch of intervening years;
Near me my little daughter smiled,
And yet I was again a child.

Outside, the winds were fierce and rough
The winter's chill was in the air;
But I could hear the bonny birds,

And humming insects everywhere,
And feel, in spite of frost and snow,
A summer breeze from long ago.

To find the place, I took the book,
And held it with a woman's hand,
While all my soul was moved with thrills
No other soul could understand;
For quite unseen, with love divine,
My mother's fingers folded mine.

And not because the music rose

Exultingly, I held my breath,
Lest I should lose its sweet delight-
Upon her lips the hush of death
For years has lain!--and yet I heard
My mother's voice in every word.
Full well I know the dead are dead,
But sometimes at a look or tone,
With short relenting will the past

One moment, give us back our own;
Oh, happy pain! too quickly done-
As swiftly ended as begun.

THE OLD MILL.

WHERE blossoms bend and grasses sway,
A silver stream comes singing down,
Along a wild and wooded way,
That shuns the tumult of the town,
Nor pauses as it runs until

It finds the shadow of the mill.

But there it tarries in its course
With slow and slower sweep, as though
It longed to lend its shining force
Once more to make the old mill go;
But swift or slow beneath the hill,
It cannot move that silent mill.

For there no more with cheerful strength
Comes busy labor, day by day,

To guide along the shivering length
Of log and plank the saw's rough way.
Henceforth no trembling sounds shall thrill
To swift response the throbbing mill.