Creeds change as ages come and go; We see by faith, but little know: Perchance the sense was not so dim, To her who strove to follow Him." RIGHT. The hours are growing shorter for the millions who are toiling, And the homes are growing better for the millions yet to be; And the poor shall learn the lesson, how that waste and sin are spoiling The fairest and the finest of a grand humanity. It is coming! it is coming! and men's thoughts are growing deeper; They are giving of their millions as they never gave before; They are learning the new Gospel; man must be his brother's keeper, And right, not might, shall triumph, and the selfish rule no more. GIRLHOOD. -The New Era. RICHARD CRASHAW. His ICHARD CRASHAW, now nearly two and a general readers of poetry until the middle of the present century, when in a few anthologies he was appreciatively, but inadequately, represented. poems ran through several editions during his lifetime, and were reprinted in 1652 and 1670, after which no issue appeared until they were included in the bulky collections of Chalmers and Anderson (1793-1810), with the exception of the selection made by Peregrine Phillips, published in 1785. Dr. Johnson did not include Crashaw in his " Lives of the Poets," though he included the lives of much inferior poets in that work. Pope appreciated Crashaw, but his higher qualities seem to have been unperceived or ignored by the author of "The Dunciad." He said of him that he was none of the worst versificators;" and considered his best pieces to be the paraphrase of Psalm xxiii, On Lessius, Epitaph on Mr. Ashton, Wishes to his supposed Mistress, and Dies Iræ." What can be said of such judgment in the face of such glorious poems as "Music's Duel," "Sospetto d' Herode," To the Name above every name," Hymn to St. Teresa,' Psalm cxxxvii," "To the Morning," etc.? Crashaw's verse is marked by some of the highest qualities of poetry. He has strong affinities to two of our great nineteenth-century poets; he has the rich imagination and sensuousness of Keats, and the subtlety of thought and exquisite lyrical flow of Shelley. 46 Crashaw is essentially a sacred poet, and, compared with George Herbert, is his superior, judged from the purely poetic standpoint. Herbert is, in a limited degree, a popular poet; Crashaw is not, and has never been so. One of the reasons for this is (probably) the taste for artificial poetry of the school of Waller, Dryden, Pope, etc., during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The fact of his being a Catholic would also deter many readers from studying his works; but, poetical thought now being wider, and religious intolerance almost a thing of the past, it may be hoped that Crashaw will soon receive the recognition which is his due. The text of the following selections follows that adopted and amended from original sources by Rev. A. B. Grosart in his complete edition of Crashaw's Works in "The Fuller Worthies' Library," but the spelling has been modernized. MUSIC'S DUEL. J. R. T. Now Westward Sol had spent the richest beams Of Noon's high glory, when hard by the streams Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat, A sweet Lute's-master, in whose gentle airs Of closer strains, and ere the war begin, A cap'ring cheerfulness; and made them sing And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all, She gives him back; her supple breast thrills out And roll themselves over her lubric throat A golden-headed harvest fairly rears His honey-dropping tops, plough'd by her breath, In that sweet soil; it seems a holy quire Her little soul is ravish'd: and so pour'd Shame now and anger mixed a double stain Or tune a song of victory to me, Or to thyself, sing thine own obsequy: Doth tune the spheres, and make Heaven's self From this to that, from that to this he flies. Feels Music's pulse in all her arteries; Those paths of sweetness which with nectar drop, The lute's light genius now does proudly rise, In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall) This done, he lists what she would say to this, And she, (although her breath's late exercise Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat,) Yet summons all her sweet powers for a note. Alas! in vain! for while (sweet soul!) she tries To measure all those wild diversities Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one Poor simple voice, raised in a natural tone; AN EPITAPH UPON MR. ASHTON, A THE modest front of this small floor, One whose conscience was a thing, To th' Church he did allow her dress, CLINTON SCOLLARD. 'HE year 1860 is notable as the birth-year of at all of whom are now familiarly known to readers of the verse of our day, and who gained the public ear at not far from the same time: Charles G. D. Roberts, Dempster Sherman and Clinton Scollard. Clinton Scollard, the youngest of the trio by a few months was born in the village of Clinton, Oneida County, New York, September 18, 1860. His father, Dr. James J. Scollard, has been for many years a physician of note in that locality and still in middle life remains in the active practice of his profession besides being connected with many of the leading business interests in that region. Clinton, his only son, was educated at private schools in his native town and after passing four years successfully at Hamilton College in the same place, was graduated from that institution in 1881. Like most boys with literary leanings, he wrote more or less indifferent verse and prose during his later years at school and in his college course. His father seems hardly to have approved of these early efforts, but his mother encouraged him by her intelligent sympathy, criticising freely and praising where praise could fairly be given. Little of this first work has been preserved. A certain ease of rhyming was its most noteworthy characteristic as it is a pronounced feature of his later work. For a year or two after leaving college Mr. Scollard was engaged as a teacher of elocution in a school in Brooklyn, New York, and then, his health becoming uncertain, he spent some time in travel in California and Florida. During these few years he wrote much in verse, and in December, 1884, published a collection of a number of his poems with the title, "Pictures in Song." This book could not be called a strong one, but showed promise and was pleasantly noticed by the reviewers. In October, 1884, Mr. Scollard removed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was for two years a graduate student at Harvard University, devoting his attention while there mainly to purely literary courses of study. During these years he wrote largely and his verse appeared in periodical literature with increasing frequency. "With Reed and Lyre," his second book, was published in September, 1886, and met with favorable attention in many quarters. The latter half of 1886 was spent by Mr. Scollard in European travel, and returning in January, 1887, he conducted classes in literature in Boston and Cambridge. A second trip to Europe was made by him in July of the same year. In September, 1888, he was appointed assistant professor of rhetoric and literature at Hamilton College, a position he now holds. "Old and New World Lyrics," his third volume, appeared in November. 1888. O. F. A. A SNOWFLAKE IN MAY. I SAW a snowflake in the air When smiling May had decked the year, And then 't was gone, I knew not where,— I saw a snowflake in the air, And thought perchance an angel's prayer Had fallen from some starry sphere; I saw a snowflake in the air When smiling May had decked the year. A TWILIGHT PIECE. I STRAYED from the bower of the roses as the dusk of the day drew on, From the purple palm-tree closes where the crimson cactus shone; Along the sycamore alley and up through the town I strode, Nor paused where the gay groups dally at curves of the wide white road. And I came to a pathway climbing through an olive orchard gray, As the last faint bells were chiming in a chapel far away. Only the stir of the lizard in the long sparse grass I heard, And the wind, like an unseen wizard, with its mystical whispered word. But at last I broke from the glooming of boughs, and the darkling place, And beheld tall warders looming o'er a wide and lonely space;· Old cypress trees intoning a chant that was weird and low, And as sad as the ghostly moaning from the lips of the Long-ago. Here many a time at the margin of day, ere the bats grew brave, Had I seen the low sun sink large in the dip of the western wave; Seen the hues of the magical painter flush half of the sky's broad zone, And then grow fainter and fainter till the flowers of the night were blown, Enwrapt by the drowsy quiet, I sank on the turf, and long I yearned for the rhythmic riot of the night-bird's soaring song; A song that should pulse and thrill me, and tides of the heart unbar, A song that should surge and fill me with thoughts of a clime afar; For I felt the passionate sadness of the mourner who may not weep, |