And I said, "I am watching my grief. Let them sleep who rejoice,

But the Spirit that loves can net part with one hour of its pain."

Once more I sat watching, in darkness that fell like a death,

The deep, solemn darkness that comes to make way for the dawn;

I looked on the earth, and it slept without motion or breath;

And blindly I looked on the sky, but the stars were withdrawn,

And the voice spoke once more: "Cease thy watching, for what dost thou gain?"

But I said, "I am watching my soul, to this darkness laid bare.

Let them sleep to whom love giveth joy, to whom love giveth pain,

But the soul left alone can not part with one moment of prayer."

THE CLOSING YEAR.

1893.

Now falters to its end a wondrous year,
Crowned with strange lights of glory and of woe,
Splendors of memory and prophetic glow,
And all that makes life terrible and dear.
The flight of mighty spirits from our sphere

Has quickened all the air. With what stern bliss They, to whom death could never come amiss, Went forth and left their rich remembrance here! Theirs is the history now of star and sun; Creation's music with their song makes rhyme:

While we, who feel great movements scarce begun, Hear the deep hours struck out, with fateful chime, Nor rest, until the breathless Age has won The hard-wrought guerdons of tumultuous Time.

LOVE IS DEAD.

LOVE is dead, they say;
Where is he laid away?

I would see him stark and fair,
Cut a lock of shining hair,
K:ss his lips, however cold,

Poor Love! sweet Love!
Who liveth not to grow old.
Love? We laid him here
On a flower-strewn bier,

Yet he's gone, we know not where! Lift the pall! Was he ever there? When his soul is fled away,

His form can never stay.

M

NATHAN KIRK GRIGGS.

R. GRIGGS was born in 1844, in Frankfort, Indiana. His father was a lawyer and died when the son was four years old. The widowed mother, a noble woman, then moved upon a little farm, five miles out, and there the boy grew up a country lad, amid the same grand forests which yet whisper their inspirations into the listening ear of the immortal author of "Ben Hur." He secured a common-school education, and, when scarce yet in his teens, he became a teacher in his own home school-district. While still teaching, he managed to reach the point of the higher education to which his ambition aspired.

After reading law for a time, he attended the University of that State, and he came from its law department armed with its diploma. In 1867 he opened a law office in the then insignificant village of Beatrice. He was a member of the constitutional convention of Nebraska of 1871, and was twice elected, as a Republican, to the upper branch of the legislature of that State. He was then chosen president of the State senate by the unanimous vote of the members of that body, both Democratic and Republican. Without solicitation on his part, and even without his knowledge, he was appointed United States Consul at Chemnitz, Germany, by President Grant, which position he held for a period of six years.

Returning to Beatrice in 1882, he renewed the pratice of law with his accustomed energy and persistence. His fine abilities being discerned by the keen eyes of the management of the great C. B. & Q. R. R. Co., he was appointed one of the general attorneys, of that company, some four or five yeras ago, to have charge of the legal business of its western division, including South Dakota, Wyoming and western Nebraska, which position he yet fills. Mr. Griggs' friends have occasionally seen in the papers a few short poems from his pen. He has also published three volumnes of songs, the words and major portion of the music being his own composition. His best productions, however, were kept for publication in more permanent form, in a book entitled the "Lyrics of the Lariat."

Mr. Griggs was married, in Delhi, Iowa, in 1869, to Miss Epsie E. Saunders. They have three children, two girls and a boy.

Mr. Griggs is a most striking man, his height being six feet two, his weight nearly 200. Being straight as an arrow, with eyes black and saarching, and step quick and seemingly as tireless as the tread of an engine, he is one ever noticed by all.

W. H. A.