JAMES B. KENYON.

AMES BENJAMIN KENYON was born at

1858. His boyhood was passed amid the delightful scenery of the Mohawk Valley. The high hills, wooded from base to crown, with intervals of grain fields and pasture-lands, and the fertile valley with the Mohawk winding through, were all indelibly stamped on the mind of the poet. And now, when he describes a landscape in his poems, it is from memory, and he paints in words some picture of the Mohawk Valley.

Mr. Kenyon graduated from the Hungerford Collegiate Institute, at Adams, in New York state, July 2, 1874. For three seasons following he taught in the common schools. In April, 1878, being just twenty years old, he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church. With the exception of two years spent in New York City as manager of a lecture bureau, Mr. Kenyon has been in the pastorate since the time when he first received a license to preach. He has been successful in the pulpit, having rapidly risen from the poorest to the best appointments in his Conference. He usually preaches without notes and his manner and matter are impressive and admirable. He is highly esteemed at Watertown, N. Y., where he is now preaching.

Mr. Kenyon has published four volumes of poems, the first volume appearing when he was only sixteen years of age. It should be a warning to all young aspirants to literary honors that every poet who has issued a volume of poems before he attained his majority has invariably regretted it. Mr. Kenyon is no exception to this rule. The title of his first book was "The Fallen, and Other Poems." It was published at Utica. 'Out of the Shadows" followed in 1880, Songs in All Seasons," in 1885, "In Realms of Gold," in 1887. Mr. Kenyon has been a contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, The Century, Lippincott's, Manhattan, and American magazines, and to Outing, The Current, and other publications.

He was married January 2, 1878, to Margaret Jane Taylor, a lady of sterling Scotch ancestry, and they have two children, a boy and a girl. Socially he attracts much attention by his manner and intellectual attainments. Mr. Kenyon is of medium height and fair complexion. He has a broad, high forehead, sensitive lips, and a somewhat square chin. The poet in him is greater than the preacher, however great the preacher may be. On Poetry he has set his heart, and if he be as faithful to her in the future as he has been in the past, clinging to her through all vicissitudes, I shall not doubt that she will lead him to even higher honors than he has yet won. H. A.

PAN.

I'LL seek him yet: in some warm nook
He lies asleep beside the brook,
Drugged by the spicy gales that pass;
His pipe beside him on the grass
Lies but half trimmed,-just as it fell
When Sleep past o'er him her soft spell.
I'll seek him yet: he does not hear
The bee that drones beside his ear,
Half buried in the nectared gloom
Of some sweet-burdened, purple bloom.
Above him droop the cooling leaves;
His shaggy bosom falls and heaves,
In his deep slumber's quietness;
He will not hear me, though I press
Through woven bough and vine and flower,
Quite into his sleep-charméd bower.
Ah me, how soundly he has slept!
How well the mossy wood hath kept
Its secret old! The poppied gales,
Blown softly by, have told no tales
Of sleeping Pan, while far astray
His white flock goes this many a day.
I'll seek him yet: somewhere he lies
Well screened from peering human eyes;
And though his hoof-marks, as I know,
From mortal sight passed long ago,
Still I will tread the sylvan aisles
And sunny meadows, miles and miles;
I'll follow hard the dragon-fly,
As down the stream he circles by;
I'll track the wild-bee from its home
To that fair place whence it had come,
Where, hoarding still their honeyed store,
Bloom such rare flowers as starred of yore
The shining slopes of Arcady.

So I will seek him yet; ah me!
Though human foot hath never trod
The leafy lair where lies the god,
Who knows but by some happy chance
I yet may rouse him from his trance!

A MAID OF SICILY.

SHE heard the waves creep up the sand;
Her hair, by roving sea winds blown,
And careless of the prisoning band,
Down fluttered to the azure zone

Girt lightly round her perfect form, And clasped beneath her bosom warm Which like twin lilies shone.

The dew gleamed on her sandalled feet; Her clinging robe around her trailed;

Her eyes with morning light were sweet; And on her brow, that flushed and paled, As love and fear passed o'er her face, Was throned a rare and virgin grace, Such as earth's dawn first hailed.

Her face was seaward turned; her eyes
Looked southward, where the amber light
Was mixed with purple in the skies,
And one fair hand, to shade her sight,
Against her chaste young brow was raised;
And so she stood, and seaward gazed
Across the waters wide and bright.

She saw the level sunrays burn

Along the midsea's heaving breast; She saw the circling heavens spurn The utmost billow's tossing crest

Where, on the blue horizon's rim, A galley's sails rose, white and dim, And all her blood leaped with unrest.

She knows that sail; love's eyes are keen; She knows yon dancing bark is his; From distant coasts where he has been, From Cyprus, Tyre, and Tripolis,

Her lover brings the alien freight She prizes not; to those who wait More precious is love's first warm kiss.

He homeward brings the costly dyes

The Romans love, and nard, and myrrh, And unguents which the Emperor buys, And silks, and spice, and fruits which were Sun-steeped on far Phoenician hills; But not of these she recks; love fills Alone the happy heart of her.

So let her watch, while clearer rise
The sails which she has waited long;
The sun climbs higher up the skies;
The sea-wind greets her, salt and strong;
Her robe from one white shoulder slips;
Her breast is bare; and from her lips
Half tremble little waifs of song.

SHE CAME AND WENT. SHE came and went, as comes and goes The dewdrop on the morning rose, Or as the tender lights that die

At shut of day along the sky.

Her coming made the dawn more bright Her going brought the somber night; Her coming made the blossoms shine, Her going made them droop and pine.