So out in the kitchen I made my lair,
And started a game of hide-and-seek;
But Bridget refused to have me there,

For the Bishop was coming, to stay a week;

And she must make cookies, and cakes, and pies,
And fill every closet, and platter, and pan,
Till I thought this Bishop, so great and wise,
Must be an awfully hungry man.

Well, at last he came; and I do declare,

Dear grandpapa, he looked just like you,
With his gentle voice, and his silvery hair,
And eyes with a smile a-shining through.
And whenever he read, or talked, or prayed
I understood every single word,
And I wasn't the leastest bit afraid,
Though I never once spoke or stirred.
Till, all of a sudden, he laughed right out
To see me sit quietly listening so;
And began to tell us stories about
Some queer little fellows in Mexico.

And all about Egypt and Spain-and then
He was n't disturbed by a little noise,
But said that the greatest and best of men
Once were rollicking, healthy boys.

And he thinks it is no matter at all

If a little boy runs, and jumps, and climbs; And mamma should be willing to let me crawl Through the banister-rails in the hall some

times.

And Bridget, sir, made a great mistake
In stirring up such a bother, you see,
For the Bishop-he did n't care for cake,

And really liked to play games with me.

But though he 's so honored in word and act-
(Stoop down, for this is a secret, now)—
He could n't spell Boston! That's a fact!
But whispered to me to tell him how.

GLENDARE.

THE wild torrents plunge o'er the falls of Glendare;
The cliffs of Glendarock hang high with a frown;
And night, from the hill-tops sodden and bare,
In its gray, sleety cloak with the storm-wind
comes down.

Roy of the Highlands, he hastes from the seas,
But my Lady Glendare no longer can wait;
Like a wan spectral shape in the shadow she flees,
While the warden sleeps sound at the stout castle-
gate.

Faster, oh, faster! my Lady Glendare!

Thy black-hearted lover will close on thee soon! He rideth behind on the wings of the air,

As the black-hearted tempest rides after the

moon.

And faster, my lad, from the free Highland hill! Let each sail to the winds! Let each breath be a

prayer!

For her life blood runs slow and her life blood runs chill;

She hath beckoned to death-my Lady Glendare!

She heareth the clangor of armor behind,

The tramping of horsemen afar o'er the land, But never the flapping of sails in the wind,

Or the noise of the keel as it grates on the sand.

The wild torrents plunge o'er the falls of Glendare; There are horsemen above, there are boatmen

below;

But the waters have tangled my lady's bright hair, And her bosom is cold as the winter's white

snow.

She heeds not the voice of the brave Highland lad, She heeds not, she hears not his wail of despair; Wrap her deftly, though late, in the bright Scottish plaid

My sweet, winsome lady, my Lady Glendare!

THE TOWER.

I AM the tower of Belus-the tower! yes, I! Under the rifting lines of the gloaming's tremulant sky,

Under the shifting signs of the ages circling by,

I stand in the might of the mighty-the tower of Belus, I!

Who are these at my feet, like pigmies, scorched in

the sun?

Who, but the petty hordes of a race that has just begun?

It matters little to me whether prince or Bedouin stand,

Or the lizard creep at my feet, or the jackal up from the sand.

What does the time-bound traveler know of the

dim by-gone

What can he tell of the glory that died with the world's bright dawn,

More than the sun of the desert? the slim, green, creeping things?

The night-owl fast in his crevice? the bat with his ghostly wings?

Each in his own way imagines the past and the yet-to-be;

Each to himself is greatest: equal alike to me! I am the tower of Belus; ages unnumbered are mine;

Mightier I than the gods who dreamed themselves divine!

Is this the grandest of rivers, that rolled like a king to the sea,

Crying, "I am the great Euphrates! bring all your tithes unto me"?

How the ships with their treasured freight went

down to their rocky bed!

Are these ghouls, insatiate still, with grinning mouths to be fed,

That you burst your stony embankments, ravaging meadow and fen,

Making drearier drear desolation, in scorn for the arts of men?

Ah! Babylonia, where-ah! where is thy fruitful plain

Spreading sea-like unto the ocean its billowy fields of grain?

Where now is the mighty city secure with its brazen gates

And walls on whose towering fastness the Assyrian

warrior waits,

His milk-white steeds in war-gear, his blazoned

flags unfurled,

Hurling in grim defiance his challenge out to the world?

Where are the toiling millions who wrought with

their cunning skill

Sweet dreams of a fair ideal in forms that were fairer still?

Oh! Babylon's looms are silent; in silence dead

are the plains;

And dead are city and soldier; the tower alone remains.

I am the tower of Belus! I stand in the grasp of fate!

I and the Semitic princess, together we watch and wait,

She for her lover's coming, I for oblivion's knell; Which with the greater longing the heavens alone can tell.

Is there any joy in existence void of hope or of fears,

In painless, slow dissolution through thousands of weary years?

Or rest for the ghost of the maiden that alike in life and in death,

While years into centuries ripen, and centuries wane, keeps faith?

She counts not night nor morning, but each new moon to greet

She cometh with shadowy garments, whose subtle perfume sweet,

From balms forever forgotten, floats over the secret bed

Where her lover, impatient, is sleeping the sleep of the restless dead.

For had he not said, "Beloved, come at the mystical hour

When the young moon lightens with silver the shade of the mighty tower"?

Had he not sworn, "Though I perish! though Belus lie in the dust"

And the trust of a loving woman is blind and unending trust.

Three hands were joined at their parting, three voices breathing love's breath;

The voice of the third was ghostly, its hand was the hand of death:

And the white stone goddess had shivered while the glowing of the sunset dyes

Had deepened in one broad blood-streak and blazed in the western skies;

But the maiden, unheeding the omen, hears only her lover's last oath,

Nor dreams that her life has been purchased with this as he dieth for both;

The grave that is reeking with vengeance no tale of its mystery brings

Gods!-he was a Tyrian soldier, she the daughter of kings!

And what but death can be reckoned as price of unequal love,

And what but the vow recorded by direful fates above

Could save the life of the maiden?-the vow that never again,

While the tower of mighty Belus o'ershadows the haunts of men

With its ancient and storied grandeur-ay, more! that never the while

One upright stone shall be standing alight with the young moon's smile,

Shall body or ghost of the soldier under its shadow wait:

But death is longer than life-time, and love is stronger than fate!

There were hope e'en yet for the tower, standing stark and alone,

Had the flames of an altar-fire e'er burned in its heart of stone;

Had the depths of its adamant bosom e'er thrilled with a love or a hate,

At dawn they sailed! a dancing, white-winged fleet; With freight of children's souls, sped to the sea, The waves, in-coming, dipped and smiled to meet Glad childish faces flushed with hope and glee; And soft winds blew, their untried sails to greet, While sea and air quivered with melody.

No swift "God speed" the happy voyagers lack; From them a song sweeps shoreward on the breeze;

And we, whose eyes but yesterday turned back,
Follow the wake of white-sailed argosies.
Nor cloud, nor storm, can dim the shining track
Across the harbor, left by ships like these.

HOME.

Oh! Love of Home! who clings to thee
Drifts not astray nor far!

Be thou, for aye, upon Life's sea
The children's guiding star!

-The Return of the Northmen.

THE

HU MAXWELL.

"HE boyhood home of Hu Maxwell was far back among the Allegheny mountains in West Virginia, where the water wells pure from the earth, and the sky is serene above, and the greenness and the freshness of the primeval woodlands whisper to the soul of man, and "nature speaks with a myriad tongue that life is there." Beneath the hills, and among the forests, and by the brooks that played through the shadows, he spent his early years. It has been said of him that he never had any companions or playmates. He walked by the river, and climbed the mountains, and strolled through out-of-way places, and always alone. The rocks and rills, the leaves and trees, and flowers, and the whole inanimate world were his companions. That love of nature and that worship of the beautiful grew into his character and became himself. What he was as a boy he is

as a man.

His progress at school was discouraging. In fact there were few educational advantages in that rural country. At home he was surrounded by culture and refinement, for his parents were highly educated, but beyond his own home there was a deplorable illiteracy. His mother took his education under her special care, and instructed him in the primary branches and in algebra and Latin. A turn for mathematics was inherited from his father.

In course of time the poet entered college and at nineteen years of age graduated at the head of his class. He aspired to a cadet engineership in the navy, but was rejected on account of defective eyesight. He studied law, but soon saw that it did not suit him, and he quit it. For a short time he taught Latin and Greek in the St. George Academy. Having purchased a newspaper, he spent a time as editor, and in the meanwhile published in a volume of six hundred pages a history of his native county. This work has been pronounced a model of what a local history should be. Before his twenty-first year he had lectured on subjects of archæology. Twice before his twenty-fifth year he had been chosen poet of the West Virginia Press Association, and had been elected Mayor of his town. Before that time he had seen many parts of America, extending his travels to Mexico and California. He followed no beaten paths. His way was through forests and deserts and over mountains, and all the while his guiding spirit was that love of nature which developed in his early years. What to him as a boy was only a dream, he has realized; and strange lands, and islands of the