"And wilt thou, Sir Oluph, not dance with me? Then plague and sickness follow thee."

With that a blow his heart she dealt;
Such pain he had ne'er all his lifetime felt.
Then him upon his horse she placed;
"Now to thy sweetheart ride in haste!”
And when he came to his castle door,
His mother she trembling stood before.
"Speak on, my son! quick tell thy tale!
What makest thou look so wan and pale?
"Why should I not look pale with pain?
I came through the efin folks' domain."
"Speak on, my son, so dear and true,
What shall I say thy sweetheart to?"

"Tell her I rode in the woods this morn,
To try my horse, my hound, and my horn."
Then lay he down on the bridal bed,
All draped with curtains rich and red.
And ere the dawn it rose in the East,
The bride and guests they came to the feast.
They gave her gifts, they gave her wine;
"Where is Sir Oluph, the bridegroom mine?"
"Sir Oluph he rode in the woods this morn,
To try his horse, his hound, and his horn."

But the bride she drew the curtain red,
And there she saw Sir Oluph-dead.

BONNIE GIRZIE O' GLENBRAE. LEEZE me, lassie, but I lo'e thee,

And my thochts run like a sang, As the burn adoon the corrie,

Louping wi' sheer joy alang. Gin ye knew their sang by hairt, love, And would lilt the simple lay,

Oh, how happy wad it mak' me, Bonnie Girzie'o' Glenbrae!

'Mang the lave thee only lo’e I,
And my hairt is like a bloom,
As a gowan on the haugh-side,
Bursting wi' love's pure perfume;
Wad ye wear my modest posy
On thy bosom, blest for aye,
It would yield its inmost spirit,
Bonnie Girzie o' Glenbrae.

Wad ye sing my thochts, my dawtie, Yours wad lilt fond symphony; Wad ye wear my hairt-bloom ever, Yours wad fellow-blossom be; Sweet wi' joy and love enduring, Song and bloom wad blend alway, Livin' melody and fragranceBonnie Girzie o' Glenbrae.

TO THE APRIL ARBUTUS.

As a babe, cuddled on its mother's breast, Awakes at early morning's peep,

And, stirred by a feeling of unrest,

Out from under the clothes doth creep; Then clambering over the bed, the while Touching mamma's face with playful tap, She awakes and greets with loving smile

The wee disturber of her morning nap.

So, thou, earth's infant, doth from repose

Awake at Spring, early morn of the year, To crawl from beneath thy spread of snows, And the pillow-breast of thy parent dear, O'er thy bed in a listless way to creep,

Till touching her face with light caress, Mother Nature arouses from wintry sleep With a welcome smile her pet to bless.

TO AN EASTER LILY. FAIR floral Day-Star, type of that which shone Above the resurrected Saviour's tomb, Piercing with rays of hope the cavern gloom, Where stood the mourners, marvelling, alone. Thou altar-chalice, white as Parian stone,

Thy chastened spirit, rising in perfume, Pervades as incense all my hushful room, And hallows every sense with holy tone. Pure, sanctified from sin, thy heart of gold Doth symbolize the One, from dross aloof, Hath stood the crucial test, above all proof, And stands redeemed in Love, a thousand fold. Thy lip-like petals, with a subtle breath, Proclaim the soul's proud victory over death.

357

R

WILLIAM CHANNING GANNETT.

men.

EV. WILLIAM C. GANNETT was born in Boston, Mass., March 13th, 1840. His father was long the honored minister of the Federal Street, afterwards the Arlington Street Church, Boston. The son was graduated from Harvard College in 1860, and then taught a year at Newport, R. I. Having next spent six months in the Divinity School at Cambridge, he devoted three-and-onehalf years during the war, to work among the freedAfter the war was over he passed a year in Europe and then two more in the Cambridge Theological School, being graduated from that institu- | tion in 1868. For nearly two years he was the pastor of the Unitarian Church in Milwaukee, Wis. He has done much literary work, and printed an article on the Port Royal experiment in the North American Review, (1865), and one on Russian Emancipation in the same publication. He has contributed to the magazines and papers, various sermons, lectures and addresses, and he has also written some very fine hymns and other poems, which are rich in thought and expression. Rev. William C. Gannett is now a resident of Rochester, N. Y.

A. P. P.

FOR us no past? Nay, what is present sweetness
But yesterdays dissolving in to-day?
No past? It flowers in every new completeness,
And scarce from eye and ear can hide away.

These berries, mottling blue the rocky hollows,
Still cluster with the blossom trick of June;
The cloud-led shadow loiters there and follows
O'er crags sun-stained by centuries of noon;
Yon aged pine waves young defiant gesture

When hustling winds pant by in wild sea-mood;
The valley's grace in all its shining vesture,—
Ages have carved it from the solitude;
Low sings the stream in murmurs faint recalling
The chant of floods the solitude once heard;
And this wide quiet on the hill-tops falling

Made hush at eves that listener never stirred.

And as on us it falls, our laughter stilling,
Dim echoes cross it of all old delight!
The joy, along the soul's far reaches thrilling
To glory of the summer day and night,
Has been inwrought by many a summer-hour
Of past selves long forgot,-enrichment slow,
Attuning mind and heart with mystic power
To the fresh marvel of this sunset's glow.

M

GEORGE C. BRAGDON.

359

R. BRAGDON was born on a farm in Richland, Oswego county, N. Y. His later school education was in Falley Seminary, Fulton, and Union College, Schenectady (class of '56). After leaving college he was instructor in Pulaski Academy for nearly two years, and then took charge of the union school at Centralia, Ill. He returned to New York in 1860, pausing in Oberlin, Ohio, on the way, to marry Miss Katherine E. Shipherd, the daughter of a Congregational clergyman. In March, 1861, he commenced work in his chosen profession as editor of the Watertown Daily News. The next year the paper was sold, and he became the city editor of the Utica Morning Herald for three years. He then purchased the Jefferson County Journal (now Adams Journal,) sold it after a profitable ownership of three years, and in the fall of 1868 started the Ithacan at Ithaca. The new paper was sold to and merged in the Ithaca Journal a year afterward, and Mr. Bragdon went to Watertown and started the Watertown Post, which is still a flourishing newspaper. His next venture was in New York City, where, as associate editor and proprietor, he assisted in establishing the Financier. Some of the ablest writers on financial and economic questions were engaged, and the paper was quickly recognized as one of the best of its class. It passed into the possession of a stock company a year and a half from its birth, and since that time Mr. Bragdon has been connected with different newspapers and has continued almost constantly in editorial harness until recently. He has long been an occasional contributor to the magazines and other periodicals. Mr. Bragdon delivered the annual poem before the New York Press Association in 1872 in Watertown, during the visit of the Southern editors. In 1869 he and Prof. Clark of Cornell University made a thorough exploration of the glen region around Ithaca, the finest in the state, and Mr. Bragdon wrote a comprehensive description of the more picturesque features of its fifteen or twenty glens, which was published in a series of articles in the Ithacan, and afterward in part in a guide book. He also wrote, in the winter of 1873, the first descriptive pamphlet of the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence. His numerous poems have been written in the intervals of a busy life, and have not been published in book form, but some of them have been widely copied by the press, and a few of them may be found in recent anthologies. Mr. Bragdon has been a resident of Rochester, N. Y., for the past ten-and-a-half years. W. W.

OUR SAINT.

THERE was a woman once so pure and fine
That men half-questioned if she were divine,
And there were those would weepingly confess
Dark sins to her of their unrighteousness.

She was not canonized, as some have been,
And yet you could not trace the taint of sin
In any of her quiet words and ways
Of any place or day of all her days.

And so we thought her saint, and called her such,
While here and there came one who longed to touch
Her garment's hem, if haply it might be
A holy charm to set a chained soul free.

Madonna? No; and yet it always seemed
That the still influences which from her streamed
Were like those ancient ones where knelt and trod
The storied mother of the Son of God.

Some saints are shrined upon the church's books Who paved their lives with penance, and whose looks

Were overshadowed by a gloom intense-
Error's sincere but bitter eloquence.

Not such an one was she-our saint-ah, no:
From all her being shone the steady glow
Of loves and hopes that fed on happiness,
Receiving which she could the better bless.

She even chided with a helpful smile,
And chiding, longed to say, "well done," the
while,

Then beamed on goodness with so rich a grace That all sweet things seemed nestling in her face.

The rankling hates and envies of mankind, That steal their faith and truth, and make them blind,

And keep them back from virtue's path and goal,
Were scared and scattered by her gentle soul.

She turned not tremblingly away at sight
Of any ill, for love o’ercame all fright,
And stirred the mother feeling, which is wont
To stand protectingly in danger's front.

Her low voice, soft as breathings from a flute,
Spake its right word in season, then was mute,
Pausing and waiting willingly to learn
While other speech or silence had its turn.

Her eyes were strongest of all speechless pleas
To others' hearts for kindly sympathies,
Revealing hers as one which could not rest
From wishing blessings on each life unblest.

Her willing feet and willing hands would haste
To give each new-found sufferer a taste
Of whatsoever things might help or heal
The body or the soul, for either's weal.

Could you have heard her pray, as we have heard,
To the dear God, each fervent faith-winged word
Seeming to fly straight upward to his throne,
You would have wished to make her faith your own.

You would have felt the secret of her power,
And wondered not that almost every hour
New strength and courage unto her were sent,
Nor that she shared them wheresoe'er she went.
Could you have heard her sing, as we have heard,
Her notes more pure than those of any bird,
And praise and tenderness in every one,
You would have reverenced her, as we have done.
She was herself a very prayer and song,
E'en though her lips kept silence all day long;
You saw her such in every move and look,
You read her such as in an open book.

AN APRIL DAY.

BUT yesterday the snow was on the hill, And mists brought down a dull and shivering ache,

And all the robins were concealed and still,

And not one prophet of the flowers outspake.

To-day the sun looks out with smiling face,

And drinks the cheerless mists, and melts the

snow,

And woos each songster from its hiding place,

And spreads athwart the hill a summer glow.

Glad contrast! Sweet rebuke of feeble hope! Promise of seed and harvest time's return, Howe'er at intervals our spirits grope

In unbelief of that for which they yearn.

Dear April day, I'll put thee in my heart,

So that, when other April days shall come Like yesterday, their sadness may depart

In memory of thee, and doubt grow dumb.

I'll take thee, April day, when thou art past,
Along with me into the nearing May,
And months and years beyond, and hold thee fast
As a bright benison, O April day.

No dreary mists between the sun and me

Should hide the One whose wisdom can not fail, And I am all too blind unless I see

Through every veil to Him within the veil.

361

But new anointing may restore the sight,
And bring a faith which, like a midnight star,
Shall ray through blackest darkness paths of light,
And show the good awaiting us afar.

Be our anointing on this April day,

And let it make our faltering purpose strong, And give the living faith for which we pray, And change our murmuring to praiseful song. Its passage even now foretells the sweets,

In the near future, of unnumbered flowers, And all the beauty which the year repeats, From glistening dews to rainbows after showers; From leafy greenness in the woods and fields

To day-fringed splendors of the east and west, And soft effulgence which the night-sky yields, Flowing, perchance, from regions of the blest.

ROSSITER JOHNSON.

OSSITER JOHNSON is a literary “man of all

ROSSITER, though he is one of the most indus

trious and skillful writers of his day, the kind of labor to which he has chiefly devoted his pen has prevented him from acquiring a wide popular reputation as an author. He was born in Rochester, January 27, 1840, and is the son of a famous Rochester school teacher, Reuben Johnson, who, in his early manhood, helped to defend Stonington, Conn., from the British fleet in 1814. The son was graduated from Rochester University in 1863 and was the class poet. Among his classmates was his intimate friend, Joseph O'Connor, formerly editor of the Buffalo Courier, now editor of the Rochester Post-Express, who afterward married Johnson's sister, herself an accomplished writer and translator. Johnson was connected for four years with the Rochester Democrat, and for three years was editor of the Concord, N. H., Statesman, but since 1873 he has been connected with the house of D. Appleton & Co., as an editor of its publications. He assisted in the preparation of the first revised edition of the "American Cyclopædia," and had a share in the preparation of the last two volumes of Sydney Howard Gay's "History of the United States," and has planned and edited many other works. Since 1883 he has been the editor of "Appleton's Annual Cyclopædia," and he is also one of the editors of the new "Standard Dictionary." He had a general oversight of the preparation of Appleton's "Cyclopædia of American Biography." He is the author of "Phaeton Rogers, a Novel of Boy Life," first printed in St. Nicholas, the scene of which is laid in Rochester, and "The End of a Rainbow," another ingenious book for boys; "A History of the War between the United States and Great Britain in 1812-15;" "A History of the French War, ending in the Conquest of Canada; "Idler and Poet," a small volume of verses; and "A Short History of the War of Secession." He married in 1869 Helen Kendrick, daughter of Prof. A. C. Kendrick, of Rochester University. Mrs. Johnson is the author of "The Roddy Books," and a novel entitled “Raleigh Westgate,” and the compiler of "Our Familiar Songs and Those Who Made Them," "The Nut-Shell Series," "Poems and Songs for Young People," etc. F. J. S.

FAITH'S SURRENDER.

As vanquished years behind me glide, Trailing the banner of their boasts, Lo! step for step and stride for stride, Beside me walk their silent ghosts.