Instead of silent eggs within the nest, Four precious fledgelings should reward his quest. A meadow-lark sang loud, and set his spray A-tremble with his passionate essay.

A field lay wounded; its embroidered weft
Rent in a thousand rags; outraged, bereft
Of bloom, its cherished nests laid bare to theft;
All such small secrets hid so lovingly,
Told rudely to the far, unpitying sky;
And every spray of fragrant clover cleft
Asunder,-not one crimson cockle left.

Yet, field, charge not the reaper's hand with wrath,
To thy life's purpose led no other path,-
Seed-time and sunshine, sorrow and the swath.
Still mercy waits in many a sudden burst
Of healing rain upon thee,-faint, athirst,
And dying. Lo, beyond the sickle's scath
The chastened promise of the aftermath.

DIVIDED.

I CANNOT reach thee; we are far, so far Apart, who are so dear!

Love, be it so;

Else we might press so close we should not grow. One doth deny even this so sweet a bar

For fear our souls' true shape should suffer mar.
Ah, surface-sundered, yet do we not know
A hidden union in the deeps below?
An intertwining where the strong roots are?
So husbandmen plant trees, Sweetheart, a space
Between. Complete the figure. High in air

After the trees are grown, their spreading boughs Reach forth and mingle. In some far glad place, When thou and I are straight and tall and fair, We shall clasp hands again,-if God allows.

LIMITED.

O LOVE, this cup of mine is all too shallow,
Wherein thy generous vintage I must bear!

O Life, full half thine acreage lies fallow

Where I can never drive my ardent share! My eager hands so tremble that they spill it, That priceless wine,-alas for haste! but then, Repentant tears run down again to fill it, Till all the scanty chalice brims again.

My own small plot yields blossoms in abundance, And wheat enough to serve my life-long leaven;

I plough and prune, and check the weed's redundance,

And furnish timely drink denied of heaven.

Yet o'er the sunny tilth beyond my hedges
My eyes will wander with a strong desire;
And, but my Master showed my solemn pledges,
I should stray off, forgetful of my hire.

From the bright pageant of the eastern heaven The lordly hours, whereby our zeal is pent, Rush, with their glowing coursers overdriven, Toward the late revel of the occident.

Ah! never one a moment stays or lingers,

Though we do throng their path with mad desires, Grasp at their dizzy wheels with frenzied fingers, Wash with our bravest blood their ruthless tires.

I think sometime my soul will cast this langour, The bondage-bred, and rise with thunderings; Burst all the golden links in noble anger,

And fling the fragments from her liberate wings.

I think sometime my soul the cup will shatter,Impatient of its hindrance,-by the force

Of passionate thirst,-and, as the clay sherds scatter,

Will press with bare lips to the very Source.

WILD TIGER-LILY.

ISOLATE in her conscious grandeur, creature of a royal blood,

She doth rule, the one unrivaled Cleopatra of the Wood.

Something in her regal stature,

In her fierce and fervid nature,

Brings to mind a vivid vision of the Lady of the Nile.

How the splendor of her presence, how her suddenflashing smile

Glorifies the slumbrous spaces of the dusky forest aisle!

And a face of Orient oval, olive-browed, and midnight-eyed,

Looks from flowing, flame-hued draperies in its dark, imperial pride.

While a figure fancy fashions, faultless in its mold and mien,

Supple, sinuous, seductive as some tawny jungle queen.

Then, as though a gathering tempest smote athwart Eolian wires

All a-thrill with pride and passion, sad as death, a voice inquires:

"Do you wonder at my Roman? do you marvel how I died?"

37

AT MOUNT DESERT.

THE grasses with sweet hardihood have crept
On slow, soft feet out to the very verge,
All unaffrighted by the thundering serge;
The mists have gathered, and the fogs have wept-
A thousand winters over them have slept,
Yet greener still and greener they emerge
From every storm, and patiently they urge
Their fond excuse. On rocks below are swept
Fragments of wreck. The wrathful waves recede
Into the sullen bulk of beryl brine.
The storm is spent, belovéd; only heed

That glad break in the lowering sky! Ah, mine
Forever! This means life to me-cliffs, sea,
Surge, storm, brave grasses, breaking sky-
and thee!

THOMAS S. COLLIER.

Tail to be familiar to the reader, as his produc

HE name of Thomas S. Collier can hardly

tions both in prose and verse have during the past fifteen years frequently appeared in the leading periodicals and papers of this country. While an ingenious writer of short stories it is as a poet that Mr. Collier has won his widest reputation. The Atlantic, the Century Magazine, the Youth's Companion, and other publications of that ilk have given his fancies a printed form, and more than one of his poems, by constant reprinting and by the fact of finding a place in collections, has become one of those familiar poems that everybody knows. This is particularly true of his "Cleopatra Dying," which as a companion piece to Lytie's well-known “Anthony," has followed it side by side in many collections of verse. Still another poem of Mr. Collier's, entitled "Sacrilege,” which first appeared in the Youth's Companion, has been so often reprinted that it might almost claim a continuous publication in our newspapers. He is perhaps at his best in some poem of occasion, like "In Pace," a memorial of the men who fell in the massacre in Fort Griswold, Groton Heights, Connecticut, September 6, 1781. To this class, and displaying the same conspicuous merit, belongs the poem which Mr. Collier wrote for the unveiling ceremonies of the statue recently erected by the State of Connecticut to commemorate the heroic achievement of Major John Mason and his comrades. Somewhat different in vein, perhaps not as widely known as the poems mentioned, but displaying to the best advantage the skill and technique of the writer, is the exquisite sonnet entitled, "Not Lost," contributed by Mr. Collier to “A Masque of Poets," a collection of some few years ago which included all of our best known

of a star:

familiar poems one would not care to omit "The Forgotten Books," published in Mr. Matthews's excellent collection entitled, "Ballads of Books."

Mr. Collier was born in New York City Nov. 14, 1842. He went to sea when he was fifteen years old; entered the American Navy at an early age. He was on the ship that opened the Japanese ports to commerce, and on that which brought the Japanese embassy back. He served in the navy all through our civil war and was retired in 1883. Since 1866 he has made his home in New London, Conn.

Mr. Collier is the Secretary of the New London County Historical Society, and has taken a deep interest in the collection and preservation of many

valuable colonial documents, which, but for his watchfulness, would have been lost. He is a book lover and a book collector. His library is a most interesting and valuable one, containing many rare and out-of-the-way volumes. The collector's instinct has carried him outside of the field of literature. He is a numismatist of reputation, and possesses a valuable collection of coins and medals, while the walls of his study are adorned with rare bits of old China. Mr. Collier has a volume of poems prepared for the press which will be published soon. W. L.

SACRILEGE.

BESIDE the wall, and near the massive gate

Of the great temple in Jerusalem,

The legionary, Probus, stood, elate,

His eager clasp circling a royal gem.

It was an offering made by some dead king
Unto the great Jehovah, when the sword
Amid his foes had mown a ghastly ring,

Helped by the dreaded Angel of the Lord. There, on his rival's crest, among the slain, Through the red harvest it had clearly shone, Lighting the grimness of the sanguine plain With splendors that had glorified a throne. Above the altar of God's sacred place,

A watchful star, it lit the passing years,
With radiance falling on each suppliant's face,
Gleaning alike in love's and sorrow's tears.
Till swept the war-tide through the sunlit vales
Leading from Jordan, and the western sea,
And the fierce host of Titus filled the gales
With jubilant shouts, and songs of victory.

Then came the day when over all the walls

The Romans surged, and Death laughed loud and high;

And there was wailing in the palace halls,

And sound of lamentations in the sky.

Torn from its place, it lay within the hand

Of Probus, whose keen sword had rent a way,
With rapid blows, amid the priestly band
Whose piteous prayers moaned through that
dreadful day.

And there, beside the wall, he stopped to gaze
Upon the fortune that would give his life

The home and rest that come with bounteous days,
And bring reward for toil, and warlike strife.
There was no cloud in all heaven's lustrous blue,
Yet suddenly a red flash cleft the air,
And the dark shadow held a deeper hue,-
A dead man, with an empty hand, lay there.

CLEOPATRA DYING.

SINKS the sun below the desert,

Golden glows the sluggish Nile; Purple flame crowns sphynx and temple, Lights up every ancient pile Where the old gods now are sleeping;

Isis and Osiris great!

Guard me, help me, give me courage
Like a Queen to meet my fate!

"I am dying, Egypt, dying!" Let the Cæsar's army comeI will cheat him of his glory,

Though beyond the Styx I roam. Shall he drag this beauty with him While the crowd his triumph sings? No, no, never! I will show him What lies in the blood of kings.

Though he hold the golden scepter,
Rule the Pharaohs' sunny land,
Where old Nilus rolls resistless,
Through the sweeps of silvery sand,
He shall never say I met him
Fawning, abject, like a slave-

I will foil him, though to do it
I must cross the Stygian wave.

Oh, my hero, sleeping, sleeping-
Shall I meet you on the shore
Of Plutonian shadows? Shall we
In death meet, and love once more?
See, I follow in your footsteps-
Scorn the Cæsar and his might;
For your love I will leap boldly

Into realms of death and night.

Down below the desert sinking,

Fades Apollo's brilliant car, And from out the distant azure

Breaks the bright gleam of a star; Venus, Queen of Love and Beauty, Welcomes me to death's embrace, Dying free, proud and triumphant, The last sovereign of my race.

Dying! dying! I am coming,

Oh, my hero, to your arms: You will welcome me, I know it

Guard me from all rude alarms. Hark! I hear the legions coming,

Hear their cries of triumph swell; But, proud Cæsar, dead I scorn you, Egypt-Antony-farewell!