For smiles and tears, and sun and rain,
Which kiss thy cheeks with sweet disdain,
Are from the same kind Hand, you know,
Both leaving as they come and go,
A touch of joy or pain.

THE POET,

THE fire had long and fiercely burned,
Till all the dross to gold had turned,
When from his gifted pen their flowed,
As his rapt soul with ardor glowed,
The Word the angles sing above,
The God-revealing Word of Love.

AUTUMN.

THE Woods are tinged with red and gold; The sky hangs crimson o'er the scene; The balmy air-Oh, rapture rare!— Floats, like a benison, between.

THE THREE STAGES.

THE Scent of apple blossoms filled
The balmy evening air,

As Sue and I walked hand in hand,—
A trusting, happy pair.

The scent of golden apples filled

The dreamy autumn air,

As Sue and I walked hand in hand,— A wedded, happy pair.

The scent of apple butter filled
The cosy dining-room,

As Sue and I danced hand to hand,
Around the kitchen broom!

PAST.

THE Voices of the Past, in varied tones,
Speak to my soul to-night and will not hush;
A thousand deeds they whisper of the years,—
The long forgotten years-when life was young,
And Joy and Hope were linked with golden
chains;

And every pulse beat music to the heart,
And every breath was drawn in Faith and Love.
-A Reverie.

LILIAN BLANCHE FEARING.

L

ILIAN BLANCHE FEARING is native of Davenport, Iowa, and that picturesque point on the banks of the Mississippi is still her home. In noting that the twenty-four years of her life have been chiefly spent in this Westerly section of America, it must be remembered that the environment there afforded is exceptional and not easily definable.

Miss Fearing began to write in verse as soon as she could write at all, and when only nine years old she was first introduced to the public by the appearance of her poetic compositions in the Young Folks Monthly, of Chicago. Frequently after this she gained prizes offered by juvenile periodicals for writings in verse. In 1877, when thirteen years of age she was placed in the Iowa College for the Blind, at Vinton, Iowa, and was graduated from there in 1884. Her overflow of spirits, her quick understanding, retentive memory and remarkable powers of expression, made her record as a pupil a brilliant one.

In 1886 her volume, entitled "The Sleeping World and other Poems" was published. It has attracted complimentary attention from many of the best American critics. The note of sadness which is suppossed to be so pronounced in her writtings does not spring from melancholy but from earnestness of temperament and an intense spiritual consciousness. This richness of inner experience is a valued guaranty of the increasing exercise and noble development of lyric power. M. S.

A THOUGHT.

It fell at night upon a rocking world

As sinks through glooms of eve a falling star; God launched it upon Time with wings unfurled, And marked its flight through centuries afar.

As fell that spirit bright on Lemnos isle;
As Phaeton, fell from Phoebus' blazing car;
As from an angel's lip, a holy smile
Slides like a sunbeam from a world afar,-

So on the dim earth fell that shining thought:
Like shooting-star it flashed along the brain
Of one who flushed to feel the strength it brought,
And shaped it for a world's eternal gain.

On prophet brows the chrismal light falls still; They break for us through calyxes of doubt, Through leaf-like thought o'er-folding thought,

until

The single golden heart of Truth shines out.

They catch a burning thought from lips divine,
And mold it into shape for human ken;
In picture, song, sculptured stone to shine,
A holy thing blest unto sentient men.

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

I LAY my finger on Time's wrist to score

The forward-surging moments as they roll; Each pulse seems quicker than the one before, And lo! my days pile up against my soul As clouds pile up against the golden sun: Alas! what have I done? what have I done?

I never steep the rosy hours in sleep,

Or hide my soul as in a gloomy crypt; No idle hands into my bosom creep;

And yet, as water-drops from house-eaves drip, So, viewless, melt my days, and from me run: Alas! what have I done? what have I done?

I have not missed the fragrance of the flowers,
Or scorned the music of the flowing rills
Whose numerous liquid tongues sing to the hours;
Yet rise my days behind me like the hills,
Unstarred by light of mighty triumphs won:
Alas! what have I done? what have I done?

Be still, my soul; restrain thy lips from woe;
Cease thy lament! for life is but the flower;
The fruit comes after death: how canst thou know
The roundness of its form, its grace and power?
Death is Life's morning: when thy work's begun,
Then ask thyself, what yet is to be done?

SYMPATHY.

THE white-toothed sea gnaws at the grizzly rocks,
And moans along the shore like one in pain;
High on the glistening sands its hoary locks
In strands of foam fall o'er and o'er again.

The purple-footed eve across the wave

Comes like a maiden to her lover's tomb; Her hands are full of stars to deck the grave Of the dead day, deep-sepulchred in gloom. The moon is cold and white as some dead face; About the stars a gray mist seems to cling; The sea-gull circles low with weary grace; The wind grieves shoreward like a hunted thing. But yester-eve, the sky and sea were bright:

In carth's one round the universe has changed; The moon and stars have parted from their light Because one friend to me has been estranged.

'Tis sympathy of heart to heart inclined,The cord that twixt two spirits may abide, O'er which thought flashes thought from mind to mind,

That robes the earth in beauty like a bride,

Sweet sympathy, that soothes earth's saddest wail, Wakes deeper rapture when the linnet trills, Sings in the soul's dark like a nightingale,

Runs through life's web of care in magic thrills; Makes stars burn deeper through night's shadowy flow,

Imparts a richer bloom to flowers and fruits, And, failing, makes the bright sun smoulder low, And stars seem withered to their golden roots.

Love lights Earth down the ages to her goal,
And sympathy is love's most glorious part,-
O human sympathy, balm of the soul,
And precious ointment to the bruisèd heart!

UNREST.

I ENVY those sweet souls that walk serenely
On the still heights of being whence they span
The pleasant, fruitful valleys lying greenly;
In peace, that moonlight happiness of man,
Calm as the wise stars over-watching keenly,
They walk content to know the things they can.
They heed no rush of storm-clouds rolling under,
Nor lightning tongues, outleaping lips of thunder,
Nor pause astonished by a sunset wonder.
Below those heights, above the warm, green valleys,
I grapple with each storm that crashes by;
Each flying wind-cloud with my nature dallies,
And sways it like an oak tree towering high;
Nor heaven nor earth with my wild spirit tallies,
And nothing in them seems to satisfy.
From Microcosm to Macrocosm still turning,
I look beyond, beyond with mighty yearning,
A restless heart within my bosom burning.
All beauty seems to fade within my clasping;
All strength seems weakness after it is gained;
All spirit fineness, touched, seems gross and rasping,
All love, insipid, with self-loving stained;
Nothing seems grand but lies beyond my grasping,
Naught noble, but the blessèd unattained.
The large, warm tears beneath my lids come creep-
ing;

Child-like I weep, nor know for what I'm weeping,
Something, dear God, beyond my human keeping
Like a frail spider by a thread suspended,
My soul swings through infinitudes unguessed;
Strange innuendoes dimly comprehended
Disturb my being with sublime unrest;