ACROSS THE YEARS.

A HAND of love at length appears,
A hand reached out across the years,
To bring me youthful treasure green,
Unmindful of the graves between.
Alas! it cannot be. The past

Its wrecks around our feet has cast.

Of those whose paths together led,
Ere youthful hopes and dreams were dead,
Some wander far in lands unknown,
Where they have learned to live alone,
Some lie at rest, with cold hands pressed
Above the quiet of their breast.

Is life the same? Can we forget?
Will youth's sun rise when it has set?
Life's lesson then can we unlearn,
And to the eastern glory turn?
Will buried love arise at length,
Again rejoicing in his strength?

Ah, no, my friend. Yet thee I greet
With pleasant memories and sweet.
We clasp our hands in peace at last
Across the gulf of sorrows past,
And, looking upward through our tears,
We gain a glimpse of heavenly years.

STRANDED.

THE ships with silver sails go by,

They seek the far-off golden isle,
Their spars gleam bright against the sky,
But one is stranded here the while.

She is not wrecked or marred or torn,
But strong and beautiful and fair,
Yet by the shore she waits forlorn,

Nor hopes the ocean-life to share.
The breezes kiss her brow in vain,
The waves woo gently at her feet.
There is no answering pulse again,
No longing for a life more sweet.
Too late! There is a death in life

As sad as wrecks in seas gone down. Thus souls are stranded from the strife Who bear no cross and win no crown.

JUNE.

In these days of love and duty,
Life is rounding to its noon,

Full of strength and full of beauty,
In the perfect light of June.

-June.

JOHN CHARLES SHEA.

101

OHN CHARLES SHEA was born in Halifax,

JOHN

N. S., February 21, 1831. In 1837 his widowed mother removed to Niagara Falls, then called Clifton, on the Canadian side. In 1840 his mother died at Queenstown, and under the guardianship of Rev. E. Gordon his education was commenced the same year. An early acquaintance

with a printing office filled him with a love for "the art preservative of all arts," and he entered the office of the old Niagara Chronicle, where he remained for several years. He then entered the Globe office in Toronto for a year's tuition, and took his place among the leading printers at that time.

In 1849 he settled in Lockport, and was successively connected with the Cataract, the Courier and the Journal of that city. In 1853 Mr. Shea was married. His wife died May 13, 1888. In 1860 Mr. Shea removed to Chicago, filling in that city responsible positions on important papers and in the councils of his craft. He removed to Kansas in 1870, and became foreman and afterward city editor of the Leavenworth Times; afterward superintendent of the Standard Publishing Company, at Lawrence. He was the founder of the daily Standard, which paper was afterward removed to Leavenworth. Later Mr. Shea became associate editor of the Kansas City Times, and then purchased a third interest in the daily Mail. He sold his interest in the Mail in 1880, and has since been engaged in publishing and literary pursuits.

S. S. P.

ECHOES FROM AN OLD KEY-BUGLE.

"FULL twenty years have flown since then!" Why, comrade, surely no;

It cannot be! Yet time glides past
Like the swift river's flow.
And he whose bugle-call we praised
Has many years been dead;
No more we 'll hear "tattoo" resound
From lips of "Putty Ned."

Where Erie bounds in mad career,

Above Niagara's fall,

Was heard full oft by list'ning ear

A well-known bugle-call;
Full oft where Captain Bidwell's boys
Their hardy camp-life led,

Was felt the charm that music lends,
In strains from "Putty Ned."

And men who camped with "Company D," And Fletcher's troop, would tell

How cheering was the bugle sound,

That sweetly rose and fell;

No other music had a charm,

When cares of camp had fled,

Like those pure airs sent proudly forth
By stalwart "Putty Ned."

A bugle, not of silver made

Nor burnished bright and fine,

But, oh, its notes were heard with joy
Along the steady line;

And then, at night, beneath the stars,
In silence deep, profound,
That old key-bugle charmed the camp
With magic of its sound.

Yes, twenty years have flown since then,
And music with its power

Has held us rapt in many a spell,

Bewitching many an hour;

But when the heart is thrilled the most,
We rest the drooping head
To hear the faintest bugle-tones
From far-off "Putty Ned."

And many times since then I've thought,
When stirred by mem'ry's sounds,

If soldiers form the night bivouac
In heaven's camping-grounds,
How quick, should that old bugle there
Sound forth all full and free,
Would Fletcher's troopers, friendly still,
"Fall in" with "Company D"!

MY MOTHER'S VOICE.

THE Voice of her I love, how dear!

Tho' far my wand'ring footsteps stray, It lingers on my list ning ear, It vibrates thro' each passing year;

And, thinking of that voice to-day, Remembrance claims the willing tear. My mother's voice! Its gentle power

Has turned temptation's face away; And tho' the tempest clouds may lower, To darken life's most joyous hour,

It comes, like sunshine on the day,
To brighten field, and wood, and bower.
That voice comes to me when alone,
In cheering accents, soft and sweet;

. In festive halls I hear its tone;
And when to milder scenes I've flown-
Thro' haunts of men, thro' busy street-
Its magic spell is round me thrown.
How sweet the voices are that blend
In murmuring rill and flow'ry lee;

In whisperings that the south winds send;
In sighs from trees when branches bend;
In thrilling sounds from heaving sea,
And in the echoes valleys lend!

Yet naught has ever touched my heart
Like that sweet voice I long to hear;
An echo of the soul thou art!
And from this revery I start

To feel my mother's spirit near.
Sweet voice! ah, we shall never part!

FOOT-PRINTS IN THE SNOW.

IT WAS morn! A virgin mantle
Covered all the somber town;

I could see the glistening snow-flakes,
From my window, nestling down;
And the shouts of truant scholars
With their faces all aglow,
Drew my eyes toward a maiden
Making foot-prints in the snow.

Where the drift lay smooth and tranquil,
Bright and pure from Heaven beguiled;
And each flake a diamond sparkled,
Walked this lovely little child;
Never heeding tinkling school-bell,
Little fearing teacher's blow,
For her thoughts were only bounded
By her foot-prints in the snow.

Pretty child! Her hood seemed falling,
And her cloak was much astray,
While she raised her dress so lightly,
Never heeding those at play;
Thus with eyes intently watching,
And with steps so very slow,
Went this tiny maiden forward
Making foot-prints in the snow.
Bright and winsome little fairy!

You have drawn, with magic art,
From the storehouse of remembrance
Treasured pictures of the heart;
Once again I'm treading pathways
That I knew long, long ago;
Once again I 'm by the roadside,
Making foot-prints in the snow.
Onward went the little maiden,
Looking there so very sweet
That the snow more brightly sparkled,
'Neath the pressure of her feet.
Happy child! serene and lovely,
May your life-stream onward flow,
And life-sorrows fade as quickly
As your foot-prints in the snow.

103

M

MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN.

AURICE FRANCIS EGAN, recently editor of the New York Freeman's Journal, and at present Professor of English Literature in the University of Notre Dame, is one of those versatile writers who have the defects of their qualities. If he had been less of a journalist, he would have produced more poetry; if he was less of a ready writer on all subjects, he would no doubt in this be one of the most popular of American poets.

This exquisite and rare talent has been recognized by Longfellow, Cardinal Newman, Stedman, Gilder, and a host of critics, both here and in England, and yet he published about on an average one sonnet a year! His sonnets are technically nearly perfect. And the little book, "Songs and Sonnets," printed in London in 1886, from the type, is very rare.

Mr. Egan was born in Philadelphia on May 24, 1852. After his college course-Georgetown College is his alma mater,-he studied law in the office of a well-known lawyer in Philadelphia. But journalism attracted him. He began with Henry Peterson's staff on the Saturday Evening Post, which then included Mrs. Hodgson Burnett and half-a-dozen other celebrities then in embryo,-and continued in the treadmill of newspaper work until he succeeded to the editorship of the Freeman's Journal. His poems "Like a Lilac" and "Of Flowers," are found in many collections.

D. MACI.

THE OLD VIOLIN. THOUGH tuneless, stringless, it lies there in dust, Like some great thought on a forgotten page; The soul of music cannot fade or rust

The voice within it stronger grows with age; Its strings and bow are only trifling thingsA master-touch! its sweet soul wakes and sings.

THEOCRITUS.

DAPHNIS is mute, and hidden nymphs complain,
And mourning mingles with their fountains' song;
Shepherds contend no more, as all day long
They watch their sheep on the wide Cyprus-plain;
The master-voice is silent, songs are vain;

Blithe Pan is dead, and tales of ancient wrong, Done by the gods when gods and men were strong, Chanted to reeded pipes, no prize can gain:

O sweetest singer of the olden days,

In dusty books your idyls rare seem dead;

The gods are gone, but poets never die; Though men may turn their ears to newer lays, Sicilian nightingales, enrapturéd,

Caught all your songs, and nightly thrill the sky.

MAURICE DE GUERIN.

THE old wine filled him, and he saw, with eyes
Anoint of Nature, fauns and dryads fair
Unseen by others; to him maidenhair
And waxen lilacs and those birds that rise
A-sudden from tall reeds at slight surprise
Brought charméd thoughts; and in earth every-

where

He, like sad Jacques, found unheard music, rare As that of Syrinx to old Grecians wise.

A pagan heart, a Christian soul had he;

He followed Christ, yet for dead Pan he sighed ; Till earth and heaven met within his breast: As if Theocritus in Sicily

Had come upon the Figure crucified,

And lost his gods in deep, Christ-given rest.

FRA ANGELICO.

ART is true art, when art to God is true,

And only then. To copy Nature's work Without the chains that run the whole world

through

Gives us the eye without the lights that lurk In its clear depths: no soul, no truth is there. Oh, praise your Rubens and his fleshly brush, Oh, love your Titian and his carnal air! Give me the thrilling of a pure-toned thrush, And take your crimson parrots. Artist-saint! O Fra Angelico, your brush was dyed In hues of opal, not in vulgar paint;

You showed to us pure joys for which you sighed. Your heart was in your work, you never feigned; You left us here the Paradise you gained!

ON READING "THE POET AND HIS MASTER."
(To Richard Watson Gilder.)
COMES that sad voice, O Poet, from your heart?—
That austere voice that vibrates on the strings
Of your sweet lyre, and into blithe song brings
Notes solemn, as if Christian chants should start
Into weird concord with the notes that dart
From Pluto's bride in exile, when she sings
Of woodland days when, near her mother's springs,
To Syrinx-music, she bade care depart?

In all your songs the birds and trees are heard,
But through your singing sounds an undertone-
Wind-message through the reeds, not sung, but
sighed:

Your heart sings like a silver-throated bird,
Your soul, remembering, sea like makes it moan,
Not for the dead gods, but that Christ has died.