My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave-I claim
Only a memory of the same,

-And this beside, if you will not blame,
Your leave for one more last ride with me.

My mistress bent that brow of hers;
Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs
When pity would be softening through,
Fixed me a breathing-while or two

With life or death in the balance: right!
The blood replenished me again;

My last thought was at least not vain.
I and my mistress, side by side,
Shall be together, breathe and ride,
So one day more am I deified.

Who knows but the world may end to-night?

Hush! if you saw some western cloud
All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed
By many benedictions-sun's

And moon's and evening-star's at once-
And so you, looking and loving best,
Conscious grew, your passion drew
Cloud, sunset, moon-rise, star-shine too,
Down on you, near and yet more near,
Till flesh must fade for heaven was here!
Thus lent she and lingered-joy and fear-
Thus lay she a moment on my breast.

Then we began to ride. My soul
Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll
Freshening and fluttering in the wind.
Past hopes already lay behind.

What need to strive with a life awry?
Had I said that, had I done this,
So might I gain, so might I miss.
Might she have loved me? Just as well
She might have hated, who can tell?
Where had I been now if the worst befell?
And here we are riding, she and I.

Fail I alone, in words and deeds?
Why, all men strive and who succeeds?
We rode; it seemed my spirit flew,
Saw other regions, cities new,

As the world rushed by on either side.
I thought: All labor, yet no less
Bear up beneath their unsuccess.
Look at the end of work, contrast
The petty done, the undone vast,

This present of theirs with the hopeful past!
I hoped she would love me; here we ride.

What hand and brain went ever paired? What heart alike conceived and dared? What act proved all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshy screen?

We ride and I see her bosom heave.
There's many a crown for who can reach.
Ten lines, a statesman's life in each!
The flag stuck on a heap of bones,

A soldier's doing! what atones?
They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.
My riding is better, by their leave.

What does it all mean, poet? Well
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell
What we felt only; you expressed;
You hold things beautiful the best,

And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.
'T is something, nay 't is much; but then,
Have you yourself what 's best for men?
Are you-poor, sick, old ere your time-
Nearer one whit your own sublime
Than we who have never turned a rhyme?
Sing, riding 's a joy! For me, I ride.

And you, great sculptor-so you gave
A score of years to Art, her slave
And that's your Venus, whence we turn
To yonder girl that fords the burn!
You acquiesce, and shall I repine?
What, man of music, you grown gray
With notes and nothing else to say,
Is this your sole praise from a friend,
"Greatly his opera's strains intend,
But in music we know how fashions end!"
I gave my youth; but we ride in fine.

Who knows what 's fit for us? Had fate
Proposed bliss here should sublimate
My being-had I signed the bond-
Still one must lead some life beyond,
Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried.
This foot once planted on the goal,
This glory-garland round my soul,
Could I decry such? Try and test!
I sink back shuddering from the quest.
Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?
Now heaven and she are beyond this ride.

And yet she has not spoke so long! What if heaven be that, fair and strong At life's best, with our eyes upturned Whither life's flower is first discerned,

We, fixed so, ever should so abide? What if we still ride on, we two, With life forever old yet new,

Oh, how but losing love does whose love succeed By the death-pang to the birth-throe, learning what is love indeed?

Only grant my soul may carry high through death her cup unspilled,

Brimming though it be with knowledge, life's loss drop by drop distilled.

I shall boast it mine, the balsam, bless each kindly wrench that wrung

From life's tree its inmost virtue, tapped the

root whence pleasure sprung,

Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised the berry, left all grace

Ashes in death's stern alembic, loosed elixir in its place!

INCONSTANCY.

Was it something said, Something done,

-La Saisiaz.

Vexed him? Was it touch of hand, Turn of head?

Strange! that very way

Love begun,

I as little understand
Love's decay.

NEVER.

Never the time and the place

MEMORY.

-In a Year.

And the loved one all together!

This path-how soft to pace!
This May-what magic weather!
-Never the Time and the Place.

WOMAN.

God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures

Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her.

-One Word More.

What follows on remembrance of the past? Fear of the future! Life, from birth to death, Means either looking back on harm escaped, Or looking forward to that harm's return With tenfold power of harming.

-Ferishtah's Fancies.

FALSEHOOD.

Lied is a rough phrase: say he fell from truth In climbing towards it!

-Ibid.

Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees, Under foot the moss tracks, life and love with these!

I to wear a fawn skin, thou to dress in flowers; All the long lone Summer day, that greenwood life of ours!

Rich pavilioned, rather,―still the world without,— Inside, gold-roofed silk-walled silence round about! Queen it thou on purple, I at watch and ward Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard!

So, for us no world! Let throngs press thee to me! Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we! Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face! God is soul, souls I and thou; with souls should souls have place.

-Ferishtah's Fancies.

You groped your way across my room i' the dear dark dead of night;

At each fresh step a stumble was: but, once your lamp alight,

Easy and plain you walked again; so soon all wrong grew right!

What lay on floor to trip your foot? Each object, late awry,

Looked fitly placed, nor proved offence to footing free-for why?

The lamp showed all, discordant late, grown simple symmetry.

Be love your light and trust your guide, with these explore my heart!

No obstacle to trip you then, strike hands and souls apart!

Since rooms and hearts are furnished so,-light shows you,-needs love start?

M

ANNE REEVE ALDRICH.

ISS ALDRICH was born in New York, April 25, 1866. From her earliest years she showed a fondness for composition, spending hours from the time she learned to print in writing stories and verses, although she had the usual healthy childish tastes for romping and all out-of-door sports. At the death of her father, which occurred in her eighth year, her mother removed to the country, where she took charge of her daughter's education at first, which was afterward carried on by competent tutors. Miss Aldrich displayed remarkable proficiency in composition and rhetoric, which was counterbalanced by what she herself calls an amusing inaptitude for mathematics, so that, while she was translating French and Latin authors for amusement, she was also struggling over a simple arithmetic, whose tear-blotted leaves she still preserves.

In her fifteenth year a friend suggested her sending a poem to The Century, or Scribner's Magazine, as it was then called. Although the verses were returned, with them she received a friendly note of encouragement and praise from the editor, who from that time often criticized the young girl's work. She wrote constantly and voluminously, usually destroying her work from month to month, so that but few of her earlier verses are extant. She also read widely, her taste inclining to the early English poets and dramatists and to mediæval literature. When she was seventeen her first published poem appeared in Lippincott's Magazine, followed by others in The Century, Scribner's and various periodicals. In 1885 Miss Aldrich's mother moved back to New York, where they now reside. Her first book, "The Rose of Flame and Other Poems of Love," was issued in March, 1889.

Miss Aldrich is slender and girlish in appearance. She dislikes country life and is fond of society. She is a brilliant conversationalist, a most entertaining correspondent, and is fond of all the arts, as music, painting, etc. Her family is of English extraction. Her ancestors were notorious Tories in Revolutionary days, and their large estates were confiscated by the American government. M. A. H.

NEW EDEN.

In that first Eden, Love gave birth to Shame,
And died of horror at its loathsome child.
Let us slay Shame, and bury it to-day,
Yea, hide it in this second Eden's wild,

This dim, strange place, where for aught we two know,

No man hath stepped since God first made it so.

Now dream we are alone in all the earth.

Say, wouldst thou weep if all save us were dead? I would not weep, but closer to my breast Would press the golden glories of thy head, Rejoicing that none other of my race

Should feed his eyes upon thy wondrous face.

Look at this tangled snare of undergrowth,
These low-branched trees that darken all below;
Drink in the hot scent of this noontide air,
And hear far off some distant river flow,
Lamenting ever till it finds the sea.

New life, new world, what's shame to thee and
me?

Let us slay Shame; we shall forget his grave

Locked in the rapture of our lone embrace. Yet what if there should rise, as once of old, New wonder of this new, yet ancient place,

An angel with a whirling sword of flame
To drive us forth forever in God's name!

LOVE'S CHANGE.

I WENT to dig a grave for Love,
But the earth was so stiff and cold
That, though I strove through the bitter night,
I could not break the mold.

And I said: "Must he lie in my house in state,
And stay in his wonted place?
Must I have him with me another day,
With that awful change in his face?"

TWO SONGS OF SINGING.

I.

SING to me once again, till I forget
That now we hate, and dream we love on yet.
Thy voice, if aught on earth, can wake regret;
Sing to me once again, till I forget.

Sing! At thy voice the old dream shall arise.
Make me thy fool, feed me again with lies,
For I was happier ere I grew so wise.
Sing! At thy voice the old dream shall arise.

II.

When first I heard thee sing, O, my Beloved,
Thy voice, like wine, ran through my sleepy blood,
Woke soul and flesh in answer to its pleading,
And thrilled the unstirred depths of maidenhood.