But Thee, but Thee, O, sovereign Seer of time,
But Thee, O, poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,
But Thee, O, man's best Man, O, love's best Love,
O, perfect life in perfect labor writ,

O, all men's Comrade, Servant, King or Priest;
What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,
What least defect or shadow of defect,
What rumor, tattled by an enemy,
Of inference loose, what lack of grace
Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's;
Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,
Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ.

DEATH.

-Ibid.

I would thou left'st me free to live with love, And faith, that through the love of love doth find My Lord's dear presence in the stars above, The clods below, the flesh without, the mind Within, the bread, the tear, the smile. Opinion, damned Intriguer, gray with guile, Let me alone.

For Weakness, in freedom, grows stronger than Strength with a chain;

And Error, in freedom, will come to lamenting his stain,

Till freely repenting he whiten his spirit again; And Friendship, in freedom, will blot out the bounding of race;

And straight Law, in freedom, will curve to the rounding of grace;

And Fashion, in freedom, will die of the lie in her face.

-Psalm of the West.

WIND.

O, short-breath'd Winds beneath the gracious moon
Running mild errands for mild violets,

Or carrying sighs from the red lips of June
What wavering way the odor-current sets.

-The Symphony.

-Ibid.

L

LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

OUISE CHANDLER MOULTON was the only child of her parents, and was born at Pomfret, Conn., sixty years ago the 5th of last April. Her educational advantages were good, her school-li e being partly spent at the famous seminary of Miss Emma Willard, at Troy, N. Y., though she was not a graduate there. Born with the lyrical gift, very early the young Louise Chandler began to put her thought into verse, and at the age of fifteen was printing, under the name of "Ellen Louise,” promising poems. While yet a student at Miss Willard's seminary, she sent some of her poems to the Flag of Our Union, a paper then published in Boston by William U. Moulton. Mr. Moulton was a bachelor, and from a literary correspondence resulted an engagement of marriage. This marriage tock place about three weeks after Miss Chandler le t school, and the pair immediately settled in Boston. This city has ever since been the home of th famous lady, whose present residence is on Rutland Square. The young wife, who had already published one book, a volume of essays, poems and stories, published a novel in 1855 (the year of her marriage), withholding her name. In 1859 “ "My Third Book" was issued, and since then she has been the author of a dozen more, appearing at intervals of two or three years. In addition to her books, Mrs. Moulton has done a vast amount of newspaper work in the form of letters on social and literary topics. She was long foreign correspondent from London and Paris to prominent papers of the United States, the New York Tribune early using her work. For at least the last ten years Mrs. Moulton has spent all her summers in Europe. She goes early in the spring and returns late in the autumn. When at her home on Rutland Square, in the early winter, she entertains at her receptions, which are highly popular, the literary lions of her own and other countries. Mrs. Moulton is extremely popular in England, where "among gracious and nobly-gifted artists she holds her gentle sway, beloved and loving." Her grace and gifts have brought her there, as well as at home, the highest social eminence.

In person she is a little above the medium height, with a fine complexion and a refined, intellectual face. Her eyes are mild and dreamy and her bearing that of reposeful, quiet dignity. In dress she is tasteful and elegant.

As a poet Mrs. Moulton has charmed two worlds, and the English reviewers are as high in her praise as are those of her own country. The volumes, "Swallow Flights" and "In a Garden of Dreams,”

especially stand as the work of one than whom no American singer has reached a higher, sweeter tone. As a lyric artist, what American poet excels her?

An examination of Mrs. Moulton's work will show her not only a gifted poet, but a delightful story-teller, a lover of little children, a kindly but discriminating critic, and one of the happiest of humorists. It is hard to realize that the undertone of sadness in her poems and the laughter of her humor proceed from the same individuality.

As a reviewer of the art and poetry of others she seems to come into sympathy with their highest ideas, appreciates their good qualities, and is never unkind.

Her life is proof that intellectual gifts develop best and truest possibilities when they receive the service of patient industry, and come to express the heart and thought of true and ripe days that know the direction of discipline and the guidance of high ideals.

Mrs. Moulton has one child, a married daughter, who lives in West Virginia. MRS. G. A.

COME BACK, DEAR DAYS.

COME back, dear days, from out the past!
... I see your gentle ghosts arise;
You look at me with mournful eyes,
And then the night grows vague and vast;
You have gone back to Paradise.

Why did you fleet away, dear days? You were so welcome when you came; The morning skies were all aflame; The birds sang matins in your praise; All else of life you put to shame.

Did I not honor you aright,

I, who but lived to see you shine, Who felt your very pain divine, Thanked God and warmed me in your light, Or quaffed your tears as they were wine?

What wooed you to those stranger skies,
What love more fond, what dream more fair,
What music whispered in the air?
What soft delight of smiles and sighs
Enchanted you from otherwhere?

You left no pledges when you went.
The years since then are bleak and cold;
No bursting buds the Junes unfold;
While you were here my all I spent ;

Now I am poor, and sad, and old.

IN THE RANKS.

His death-blow struck him there in the ranks,
There in the ranks, with his face to the foe.
Did his dying lips utter curses or thanks?
No one will know.

Still he marched on, he with the rest;

Still he marched on, with his face to the foe, To the day's bitter business sternly addressed. Dead-did they know?

When the day was over, the fierce fight done,

His cheeks were red with the sunset's glow; And they crowned him there with their laurels

won.

Dead-did he know?

Laurels or roses, all one to him now.

What to a dead man is glory or glow?

Rose wreathes for love, or a crown on his brow. Dead-does he know?

And yet you will see him march on with the rest;
No man of them all makes a goodlier show,
In the thick of the tumult jostled and pressed.
Dead-would you know?

IN BOHEMIA.

I CAME between the glad green hills,
Whereon the summer sunshine lay,
And all the world was young that day,
As when the Spring's soft laughter thrills
The pulses of the waking May.

You were alive, yet scarce I knew
The world was glad because of you.

I came between the sad green hills,
Whereon the summer twilight lay,
And all the world was old that day,
And hoary age forgets the thrills

That woke the pulses of the May.
And you were dead; too well I knew
The world was sad because of you.

MY SAINT.

Oн, long the weary vigils since you left me;
In your far home, I wonder can you know
To what dread uttermost your loss bereft me,
Or half it meant to me that you should go?
The world is full, indeed, of fair hopes perished,
And loves more fleet than this poor fleeting
breath;

But that deep heart in which my heart was cherished

Must surely have survived what we call death.

They can not cease, our own true dead, to love us, And you will hear this far-off cry of mine, Though you keep holiday so high above us, Where all the happy spirits sing and shine. Steal back to me to-night from your far dwelling, Beyond the pilgrim moon, beyond the sun; They will not miss your single voice for swelling Their rapture-chorus; you are only one.

Ravish my soul, as with divine embraces; Teach me, if Life is false, that Death is true; With pledge of new delights in heavenly places Entice my spirit; take me hence with you!

NOW AND THEN.

AND had you loved me then, my dear,
And had you loved me there,
When still the sun was in the east

And hope was in the air,
When all the birds sang to the dawn
And I but sang to you;

Oh, had you loved me then, my dear,
And had you then been true!

But, ah! the day wore on, my dear,
And when the moon grew hot,
The drowsy birds forgot to sing,
And you and I forgot

To talk of love, or live for faith,

Or build ourselves a nest; And now our hearts are shelterless, Our sun is in the west.

THE SPRING IS LATE.

SHE stood alone amidst the April fields-
Brown, sodden fields, all desolate and bare.
The spring is late," she said, "the faithless spring,
That should have come to make the meadows fair.

Their sweet South left too soon; among the trees
The birds, bewildered, flutter to and fro;
For them no green boughs wait, their memories
Of last year's April had deceived them so.

"From 'neath a sheltering pine some tender buds Looked out and saw the hollows filled with snow; On such a frozen world they closed their eyes; When spring is cold, how can the blossoms blow?” She watched the homeless birds, the slow, sad spring,

The barren fields and shivering, naked trees. "Thus God has dealt with me, his child," she said; I wait my spring-time, and am cold like these.

"To them will come the fullness of their time; Their spring, though late, will make the meadow fair;

Shall I, who wait like them, like them be blest?
I am his own; doth not my Father care?"

ALONE BY THE BAY.

HE is gone. O, my heart, he is gone; And the sea remains and the sky, And the skiffs flit in and out,

And the white-winged yachts go by.

The waves run purple and green,

And the sunshine glints and glows, And freshly across the bay

The breath of the morning blows.

I liked it better last night,

When the dark shut down on the main, And the phantom fleet lay still,

And I heard the waves complain.

For the sadness that dwells in my heart, And the rune of their endless woe, Their longing, and void, and despair, Kept time in their ebb and flow.

GRANDMAMA'S WARNING.

"LOVE is a fire," she said. "Love is a fire, Beware of the madness of that wild desire! I know, for I was young, and now am old." . . "Oh, did you learn by what your elders told"

THISTLE-DOWN.

THISTLE-DOWN is a woman's love-
Thistle-down with the wind at play.
Let him who wills this truth to prove,
"Thistle-down is a woman's love,"

Seek her innermost heart to move.

Though the wind should blow her vows his way,

Thistle-down is a woman's love

Thistle-down with the wind at play.

IN WINTER.

Он, to go back to the days of June,
Just to be young and alive again,
Hearken again to the mad, sweet tune
Birds were singing with might and main!
South they flew at the summer's wane,

Leaving their nests for storms to harry, Since time was coming for wind and rain Under the wintry skies to marry.

Wearily wander by dale and dune Footsteps fettered with clanking chain; Free they were in the days of June;

Free they never can be again. Fetters of age and fetters of pain, Joys that fly and sorrows that tarry; Youth is over, and hope were vain

Under the wintry skies to marry.

Now we chant but a desolate tune:
"Oh, to be young and alive again!"
But never December turns to June,
And length of living is length of pain.
Winds in the nestless trees complain;
Snows of winter about us tarry;
And never the birds come back again
Under the wintry skies to marry.

ENVOI.

Youths and maidens, blithesome and vain,
Time makes thrusts that you can not parry
Mate in season, for who is fain
Under the wintry skies to marry?

IN TIME TO COME.

THE time will come, full soon, I shall be gone,
And you sit silent in the silent place,
With the sad autumn sunlight on your face,
Remembering the loves that were your own,
Haunted, perchance, by some familiar tone;

You will grow weary then for the dead days,
And mindful of their sweet and bitter ways,
Though passion into memory shall have grown.
Then shall I with your other ghosts draw nigh,
And whisper, as I pass, some former word,
Some old endearment known in days gone by,
Some tenderness that once your pulses stirred;
Which was it spoke to you, the wind or I?
I think you, musing, scarcely will have heard.

HIC JACET.

So Love is dead that has been quick so long!
Close, then, his eyes, and bear him to his rest,
With eglantine and myrtle on his breast,
And leave him there, their pleasant scents among;
And chant a sweet and melancholy song
About the charms whereof he was possessed,
And how of all things he was loveliest,
And to compare with aught were him to wrong.
Leave him beneath the still and solemn stars,
That gather and look down from their far place,
With their long calm our brief woes to deride,
Until the sun the morning's gate unbars
And mocks, in turn, our sorrows with his face;
And yet, had Love been Love, he had not died.