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JAMES MANNING BRONSON.

MANNING BRONSON was born in

JAMethuen, now part of Lawrence, Mass.,

thirty-five years ago, and is a descendant of a very old New England family. His father and his paternal and maternal grandfathers were clergymen, his maternal grandfather being the first president of Colby University, in Maine. His great-grandfather was a founder of Hartford and fought with Washington throughout the Revolution. Another distinguished ancestor on the maternal side was Commodore O'Brien, of the Navy. He was a wealthy man for those times. He fitted out and presented a ship of war ́to the government, and he it was who captured the first British ship taken in American waters. Young Bronson prepared for college, but did not enter, taking instead special courses of study for a number of years, with especial attention to political economy and the law. He was admitted to the bar, but never practiced. Mr. Bronson began to write verse at an early age. He has been for years an editor and newspaper writer. He was formerly connected with the New York Press. At present he is an editor, editorial writer and dramatic critic on the Syracuse Herald. His brother is a professor in the new Chicago University, and another brother is professor of English literature in Brown University, Providence, R. I. Both are well known writers in their specialties. His mother is also a writer for the press and of short stories, as was his father for religious newspapers, being especially interested in education. He was for years chairman of school boards in Boston Highlands and in various New England cities, where he was pastor. With such environments it was but natural that Mr. Bronson should turn to a career of journalism and literature. D. I.

THE VILLAGE CORNET BAND.

AMONG the recollections of those life-enchanted days

When Santa Claus was real to me, and bogie-man and fays,

The thing I best remember as then seeming supergrand

Was the music and the marching of the village cornet band.

As the first reverberation of the brasses' martial blare,

Like an echo faint and fading, floated to us on the air,

Those magic, halo days, alas, were fleeting and were few;

Too quickly, far too quickly, all the dear illusions flew;

Yet even now, when memories come surging o'er my soul,

I can see that band a-marching and can hear the music roll!

JACK.

My Jack goes sailing out to sea;

It is a witches' night;

The moon she hides her face from me,
And low the petrel's flight.

Again I peer against the west,
With little Jackie dear;

I clasp him closely to my breast,
And on his cheek a tear.

Ah! woe is me! again I stand

Upon the yellow beach,

Nor Jack nor Jackie clasps my hand; The seagulls whirl and screech.

O sea! O wave! O tell to me, And tell me, tell me true, If I do give myself to thee,

Wilt thou give me my two?

And round about her seagulls dash, And seaweeds toss and twine, And peacefully the waters plash, And in her eyes the brine.

DECORATION DAY.

ADOWN the vista of the fading years

I see a host of blue-garbed marching-men;
I hear the music's crash, the sobs the cheers;
I hear the fife's wild-piping cry again,
The rolling of the drum, the bugle's call;
I see the horsemen and the bayonet-gleam:

It all comes flashing back, and yet it all,
The sight and sound, seems only as a dream.

Not so it is to you, O Boys in Blue,

Whom I, a child, saw gayly march away; The Titan deeds you were ordained to do Live ever in your lives as though but yesterday, And give them magic color, rich and fine,

That none may know who do but delve for pelf In piping times of peace, inert, supine,

And thinking mostly of the things of Self.

All hail, O heroes of my childish thought,
Still more the heroes of my later days!

'Twas not in vain you suffered and you wrought, And well you won the meed of loftiest praise. Nor was it vain the sacred comrades fell,

(A silent toast to them 'neath Southern sod!).· Who died in battle or in prison-hell:

They bivouac to-day around the throne of God.

THE UNEXPECTED.

Not always does the silver-streaming sun
His royal onward-coming first announce
By heralds flaming in the eastern sky;
But oft, as though to take us by surprise,
He sends his rosy messengers by stealth
Around the globe the other way; and so
I've seen them dancing on the western hills,
Their shimmering silken robes wide-trailing o'er
The purple-floored horizon, while as yet
The stolid eastern cheek of gloomy night
Betrayed no sign of the approaching day.

So sometimes shines upon a darkened soul
The joyous harbingers of light and life;
From unexpected sources come the rays
Which solace bring, and comfort, strength and
cheer,

And with them Hope, and Faith, and Love revive.

ECCE HOMO.

MYSTERIOUS Figure in the world's mad crowd,

Its Personage peculiar and unique,

Sublime and splendid, yet abased and meek, Man's Servant-Son, yet more than human-proud, Endowed as other man was ne'er endowed,

Yet weak as men are weak, and still not weak, Thy mystery to solve in vain we seek, Until before Thee in our hearts we've bowed, Not moved by weird-like miracle of might,

But by the furrowed Pain upon Thy face, Thy Brother-Father love for all the race; 'Tis then, and only then, we see the light Of awful Godhead shining blinding bright Around Thee, God in Flesh, in Time, in Space.

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE.

A WAY of bruised feet, of piercèd side, of thorncrowned brow,

But which yet leads straightway to Truth, a city built of God,

Whose crystal streets are pulsing, radiant floods of purest Life,

A river flowing ceaselessly through all eternity.

"Too busy getting his dead and wounded out of sight to care that he had won the battle."-Mary Hallock Foote. ALL day the battle raged, and darkness found The armies still in deadly combat set. That night one leader with a gloom profound Rode through the camp, racked sore with inward fret.

What plot his foes, around the watch-fire met?

His sleeping ranks are spent and thinned. Retreat!

Retreat! and on his forehead breaks the sweat;

And where the lanterns flash, dead faces greet; He hears how pick and spade a funeral march can beat.

When morning broke, the enemy had fled
As for their lives in mad, ignoble rout,
Leaving behind their wounded and their dead.
The field was won; high rang the victor's shout.
But he whom men would name with lip devout,
The haggard leader, smiled not. Still before
His feet there yawned a dread abyss, and doubt
Would long oppress him if indeed he wore
A rightful homage, bought, in truth, by chance-

and gore.

So in the conflicts of the mind we see,

Although the vaunted laurel crown be worn, How sad and awful still is victory.

By passions deep and dark the soul is torn; So nearly hath the evil good forsworn,

From our own weakness we recoil in dread; From stabs of conscience triumph sinks, o'erborne. We lay the palm branch by, with drooping head, And go to soothe the wounded, cover up the dead.

To me no weed, but flower sweet,
In white and green a type complete
Of heavenly patience adding grace
And fragrance to life's commonplace.

Two pictures from the past to me It always brings. I seem to see A cottage white, an open door, The sunshine falling on the floor;

A woman in her great arm chair;
Deep lines upon her face, her hair
Like snow, and calm her clear blue eye;
The Bible on a stand near by,

And, nodding at the window small, The sprays of clover, sweet and tall; A cherished flower of home a part And rooted in the household's heart.

A country church; 'tis afternoon,
And in the trees the light winds croon;
The galleries white with curtains red;
The stove-pipes running high o'erhead;

The pulpit loft, the winding stair,
The Bible on its cushion there;
The preacher tall, my childish awe,
Proclaiming gospel and the law;

The worshipers with sober mien;
The windows tall; the gravevard green
Close by the church were tombstones white
Their truth to pulpit's words unite;

The singers' voices floating down
To add to solemn words the crown;
And on an open hymn-book lies
A clover sprig in fading guise.

Like incense rare the fragrance floats;
It mingles with the singers' notes,
While through the western windows fall
The sunbeams that transfigure all.

And so, in waste, rough places I
Rejoice this common flower to spy;
Its perfume has the subtle power
To waft me back to childhood's hour.

SWEET CLOVER.

IN waste, rough places, rank and tall, Grows the sweet clover, known of all. A weed 'tis called, though perfume rare It sheds upon the summer air.

A WOMAN OF FORTY SUMMERS.

FULL of outline and fair of face,
Swinging her fan with languid grace,
White arms gleaming through folds of lace,
A woman of forty summers.

No thread of white in the auhurn hair,

No line of age in the forehead fair,
A life unmarred by touch of care,
In spite of her forty summers

A husband-lover and children sweet,
Pleasures to charm and friends to greet,
Roses scattered before her feet,

Through each of her forty summers.

Summers all, for no winters bold
Have snatched her sunshine and made her cold;
Have killed her roses and left her old;

Nothing she knows but summers.

Nothing she knows of leaden cloud,
Of freezing air and tempest loud,

Of snows that weave for Hope a shroud;
Her life has been only summers.

So calm she sits in the balmy air,
No sorrows to fret, no cross to bear,
A summer idyl, a vision fair,

This woman of forty summers.

Yet cold and blast but make us strong,
After the snow the robin's song;
To the fullest life by right belong

The winters as well as summers.

And they whom fame shall carve in stone, The women whom men would fain enthrone, The women whom God has stamped his own, Live winters as well as summers.

TYRTEUS.

But Tyrtæus could do what his critics forgot;
Although he was lame, his verses were not,
And he sang in the ears of the Spartans, until

All their discords were hushed, and their passions were stilled,

And they like a rampart united could stand
In defense of their land.

But when opened the battle, ah! then was the time, When his hold of the army quite reached the sublime,

For they marched with a smile sternest death to salute

To the beat of his measures, where sounded the flute,

And they fought with a fervor so deadly and grand, That none could withstand.

-The Lame Schoolmaster

R

RICHARD EDWIN DAY.

ICHARD EDWIN DAY was born in the town of Granby, Oswego county, N. Y., April 27th, 1852. His early school life was spent in Falley Seminary, Fulton, N. Y. He was graduated with the degree of A. B., in Syracuse University, in 1877, and subsequently earned A. M. He entered journalism in the office of the Northern Christian Advocate in 1879, and has been editorially connected with the Syracuse Standard since 1880. He has published four volumes of poetry. For extended biographical sketch see THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY for July, 1890. Editor.

TO THE WOOD-THRUSH. ANOTHER year has past,

Minstrel divine,

And on the ground myself I cast
Beneath that bough of thine,

And where thy realm of song thou hast,
A weary heart resign.

Sing in that peerless way

Thy quiet theme,

Caught where the pine-tops all the day
Gaze at the blue and dream,
And where with mild, monotonous lay
Retreats the timid stream.

The pine's and brooklet's strain
Has gained a note
Amid the shadows of thy brain
And in thy mellow throat,
A lilt whose burden is from pain
And joy alike remote.

Let thy deep calm distill,

Voice of the woods,

And this too care-full spirit fill.

In thy clear hearted moods Something less sad than Earth doth thrill Less glad than Heaven broods.

With such pellucid song

Didst thou begin?

Man wrestles much and travails long,

His life a maddening din,

Ere he gives forth, unvexed and strong,. The note he fain would win.

So near, sweet bird, thou art,
With breast and ear,

To Nature's lips and tranquil heart,
Her thought is always clear,
What we, who stray from her apart,
Are loth and late to hear.