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MARCUS BLAKEY ALLMOND.

TSTANARDSVILLE, Va., August 17, 1851,was born Marcus Blakey Allmond, son of Alfred D. Allmond and Jane Allen Blakey. Here, also, within a radius of twenty-five miles were the homes: of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, and here! also is situated the University of Virginia. It would seem that young Allmond was well-favored in the matter of birth-place, having the example of two illustrious men ever before him, and the pure, strong breath of the mountains from which to draw inspiration.

The elder Mr. Allmond was, before the war, a merchant in Stanardsville, and owner of large landed estates adjacent to the town, and of a number of slaves. He was also member of the magisterial court and postmaster. Mrs. Allmond was a descendant of a captain in the Revolutionary war, who was also a large land-owner, leaving a large amount of property to his heirs. But the Civil war came, home and fortune were swept away, and young Allmond was obliged to depend upon his own resources for a livelihood; first a farmer boy, then a clerk in a store, but through it all a close student.

Alternately attending and teaching school until 1869, he then entered the University of Virginia, where he remained two years. At the age of 21 he became principal of the Paris, Mo., High School, with six assistants and 372 pupils. The following year he returned to the University of Virginia and completed a four-year course, winning the high honor of magazine medalist, and an award of a fifty-dollar gold medal for the best article in the magazine for the entire session. Mr. Allmond was also editor of the magazine and secretary of the Jefferson Society. After leaving the University, he taught school in Virginia, until he was elected to the chair of Ancient Languages in the Male High School, Louisville, Ky. While there he married Miss Virginia Carey Meade of Virginia, daughter of William Washington Meade, and niece of Bishop William Meade, the talented leader of the Episcopal church. Miss Meade is a relative of the Washingtons, Randolphs, Nelsons, Pages and Lees of Virginia. She, too, was a teacher, and is the real heroine of Professor Allmond's poem "Estelle." Two years later Professor Allmond took the chair of Mental and Moral Science and Logic in the South-Western University, Jackson, Tenn., but being again called to his chair in Louisville, he determined to return thither and did so. Here he remained five years, receiving several calls to other colleges during that time, but being attached to Louisville he preferred to remain there. During his professorship in the High School "Estelle" was

published. The first edition was exhausted in five weeks. A second edition was soon published and sold. Professor Allmond has also published "Agricola, an Eastern Idyl," and "Outlines of Latin Syntax and Rules for Gender (Latin),” which have found a ready sale. Many of Professor Allmond's writings are unpublished, because he has been so

immured in his duties as head master of the University School at Louisville, Ky.

Professor Allmond has lectured on the" Wrath of Achilles," and his lectures are always well attended by eminent literary people, and people of reading and research. He is an ardent prohibitionist and has a volume of poems pertaining to the great. temperance question nearly ready for the press. N. L. M.

IN QUIET CAVE HILL.
MY HEART is so weary

When I picture to-day
The hopes I have buried

Forever away,

In a grave they have dug
Deep down in the clay,
In quiet Cave Hill.

Oh! the dreams I have dreamed
Throughout the long years
Have blossomed in sorrow

And fruited in tears, And rest now forever Beyond my fond fears, In quiet Cave Hill.

A heart that was tuned

To a song ever sweet,
A hand that was warm

To welcome and greet,
Are lying forever,
Where rich and poor meet,
In quiet Cave Hill.

The star and the crown

I placed there, above;
The cross of sweet flowers

And lily-white dove
But faintly foreshadowed
My infinite love,

In quiet Cave Hill.
But the star and the crown

Are faded and gone,
The dove and the cross

Together have flown,
And the grave of my loved
Is there all alone,
In quiet Cave Hill.

I taught the young flowers To bloom by his head,

The lily, all white,

The rose, ever red;

But winter has come

And the flowers are dead,
In quiet Cave Hill.

"Oh! what shall I do?"
My weary heart cries;
As slowly toward heaven
I lift up my eyes,
The archangel points
His hand to the skies,
In quiet Cave Hill.

A CONSOLATION.

IF THE bird but sing its sweetest
While it poises on the wing,

If the bud is the completest
In the rosy wreath of spring,

If the dew-drop's pearly beauty
Gives new joy unto the leaf,
This is life, for this is duty;

This is life, though it be brief.

In a thousand thousand morrows,
Read it through your blinding tears,
Twenty winters with their sorrows
Are a weary length of years;

Twenty summers with their flowers,
With their birds and bees and braes,
Are but one of all the hours

In the shortest of the days.

DEAL GENTLY, LORD.

DEAL gently, Lord! Our souls are bowed

In grief; our hearts are fraught with tears;

Shed sun-light on the passing cloud,

And chase away our rising fears.

Deal gently, Lord! Thy mighty ways
Are not as ours: O Blesséd Name,
Teach us in sorrow still to praise

Thy goodness and Thy love proclaim.

Deal gently, Lord! For we are weak;
The archer, Death, has smitten low
Our leader, and we pray Thee speak
And cheer us in this hour of woe.
Deal gently, Lord! In darkness let
Thy fiery pillar lead the way;
Bring us, though foes within beset,
Unto the bright and better day.

Deal gently, Lord! Our dead shall be New cause to fill our hearts with love; New peace and joy in man and Thee; New hope and faith in Heaven above.

VIRGINIA.

In that fair land of light and love,
Where heroes sleep entombed in throngs,
Where laughing skies are blue above
And Nature sings her sweetest songs—
In that dear land we love, and hold
The saintliest of the sisterhood,
The State of States, whose arms enfold
Yet hosts on hosts of great and good,
Whose virgin soil bears virgin name,
Whose best of people wear the grace
Of heirship in their fathers' fame

With ease that marks a kindred race,
Whose men love honor as their soul,
And women are Cornelias all,
Who count their jewels by the roll

Of sons who heed their country's call;— Close nestling under mountains blue

A streamlet rises in a glen
And makes its way to broader view
Amid the busier haunts of men;
But ere it leaves its mountain home

It laughs along fair sloping hills
And catches with its whiter foam
The ripples of unnumbered rills;

It passes houses, one by one,

That, nestling 'mid their groves of trees, Escape the noon-heat of the sun

When plays the fitful summer breeze;
It passes scenes that would delight
The painter's or the poet's eye-
That breathe anew by day, by night,
The glories of an Arcady.

MISINTERPRETATION.

-Estelle.

WILL

WILL CARLETON.

'ILL CARLETON was born October 21, 1845, in Hudson, Michigan, whither his father had gone, in early manhood, from the hills of New Hampshire. The youngest of five children, he was not born too late to share the privation of a pioneer household. "The First Settler's Story" could never have been sung by a soul cradled in luxury. A hard-working, matter-of-fact man, Will's father would have chosen to see his son develop into a tolerably good farmer; and, though of a kindly, generous disposition, his righteous soul was not a little vexed at the wayward fancies and oratorical eccentricities of the eager, aspiring boy. "It is a pleasant memory," writes the poetorator, years afterward, "that my father lived to see me earning a hundred dollars a night, and admitted, with a grave twinkle in his eye, that, having looked the matter over from a non-agricultural standpoint, he had concluded there was more in me than he had supposed." A stalwart Christian, the blameless life of the priest-like father finds fitting tribute in the affectionate lines wherewith the poet dedicates his "Farm Legends": "To the memory of a nobleman, my Farmer Father." When ten years old, Will wrote his first poem, a letter in rhyme to his sister. He says, "I did up everything at the farm and in the vicinity in choice doggerel, and mailed it to her." Fortunately for him, and for us, and for many who shall come after us, those simple lines, written half in fun and half in earnest, met with an appreciative reception. "She was a dear, sweet girl, and upon her return home she petted and encouraged my poor little rhymes much more than they deserved. The grief of my boyhood was her death, a few years afterward.”

Struggling, much of the time in frail health, with the obstacles which thronged his upward way, he reaches at last the end of his college course, June 17, 1869, and entered the larger University without. It was a world in which he was soon to find his proper place. After a brief apprenticeship in Chicago, the young newspaper-poet returned to Hillsdale, his college town, where better remuneration rewarded his versatile journalistic ability. It seems passing strange, but the record shows that a score or more of publishers "declined with thanks" to assume the responsibility of announcing his name to the thousands who were eager to know him. But "Betsy and I are Out," in 1871, got even with the publishers. It took the country by storm. Messrs. Harper & Brothers were shrewd enough to see that there was more where THAT came from,-hence the mutually remunera

tive fellowship which has continued to this day. At the age of twenty-six Will Carleton was famous. The plucky plow-boy had won his place among the popular poets of America. In 1873 appeared the "Farm Ballads," dedicated to his mother. In a beautiful old age, saintly with that serenity which is the gift of God, the mother, whose rich and responsive nature was the fount of inspiration to her highly talented child, now shares his multiplied honors, and in his home and hers lives over and over again the days long gone.

Following the "Farm Legends" in 1875, came the "Young Folks' Centennial Rhymes" of 1876, "Farm Festivals," 1881. In 1885 he published his "City Ballads," dedicating the same to "Adora, friend, comrade, lover, wife." He had married in 1882. Latest, but not least, is his "City Legends."

It is the under-tone of pathos that, to many minds, constitutes the chief charm of Carleton's poetry. Some admire most his quaint philosophy, as devout as it is sagacious. Nor is there lack of merriment in his lines. Here and there, too, is a fine burst of anger, as forceful as it is unfeigned; and there are couplets whose analytical keenness would command a stoic's admiration. But it is not in these qualities that his fame finds its firmest ground. It is his large-heartedness which has won him his laurel. It is because he is so human that he sings so well. An instinct as unerring as it is unselfish guides him to his bestaccomplishment.

Mr. Carleton lives in Brooklyn, N. Y., having an ideal home on one of the principal residence streets of that city. B. C.

BETSEY AND I ARE OUT. DRAW up the papers, lawyer, and make 'em good and stout;

For things at home are crossways, and Betsey and I are out.

We, who have worked together so long as man and wife,

Must pull in single harness for the rest of our nat'ral life.

"What is the matter?" say you. I swan, it's hard to tell!

Most of the years behind us we've passed by very well;

I have no other woman, she has no other manOnly we've lived together as long as we ever can.

So I have talked with Betsey, and Betsey has talked with me,

And so we 've agreed together that we can 't never agree;