MARY CLEMMER. 413 Give me to die where I was born, I ask no prouder grave; Land of true Liberty's first dawn, The home of Free and Brave. THE BROTHER AND TWO SISTERS. LAUGHING, crying, smiling, sighing, Sometimes almost in despair. Sometimes almost drives her wild. Then he'd snow her out of sight: Then he'd take her and he'd shake her, 'Till she'd laugh or scream with fright. Then he'd buffet, make her rough it, Tease her all the way along; Then he'd joke her, then he'd poke her, April's crying stopped his trying May, her sister, met and kissed her, 'NEATH THE ROSES. IN the garden 'neath the roses Where the surging billows roar, Will be heard, ah-never more. Sit the parents in their bower While the robins plaintive sing, Weeping that no earthly power Can to them their Lillia bring. Yet a happy glorious meeting, Is in store for loving friends, When in God's own presence greeting All their earthly anguish ends. MARY CLEMMER. MARY CLEMMER HUDSON was born MRS, VA, N. V., in 1840. Her principal edu cation was received in the Westfield Academy, in Westfield, N. Y. Even in her earliest school-days she showed great fondness for literature and poetry. Unfortunately, at the early age of seventeen, she yielded to the wishes of others, and became the wife of a man many years her senior. The taking of that step was undoubtedly due in part to the onerous and probably unhappy life she was then leading at home. He marriage was legally annulled in 1874. Miss Clemmer tried novel-writing, and her first work to receive attention was "Erena: A Woman's Right." Then "His Two Wives" appeared in Every Saturday, Boston. She was engaged upon a novel when an accident occurred, which compelled her to cease all literary effort, and consequently the work was never finished. From her sixteenth year she had written poetry. While in school, a poem of hers had been published in a number of papers, a fact which encouraged her. In 1882 her poems were collected and published under the title, "A Volume of Poems." From 1866 to 1869 Miss Clemmer resided in Washington, doing regular work in the way of letters from Washington for the New York Independent. In 1869 she engaged for three years' work on the Brooklyn Daily Union, and for the third year's work of that engagement she received a salary of five-thousand dollars, the largest sum ever paid a newspaper woman for one year's labor up to that time. In 1872 she resumed her work on the New York Independent. In January, 1879, while in Washington, she suffered a serious injury. Medical aid was powerless, and she suffered intensely, getting but little relief during the remaining six years which she lived. On 19th June, 1883, she became the wife of Edmund Hudson, the journalist, and they immediately went to Europe. The journey was a very delightful one to her, but her strength was constantly diminishing, and in November they returned to the United States; then followed a long illness, which resulted in her death on the 18th August, 1884. All her literary work shows talent of a remarkably high and fine order. She was in the prime of her intellectual powers when she received the injuries that caused her death. H. A. V. ALONE WITH GOD. ALONE with God! Day's craven cares Alone with God! I bare my breast; Come in, come in, O, holy Guest, Give rest, Thy rest, of rest the best! Alone with God! How deep a calm Steals o'er me, sweet as music's balm, When seraphs sing a seraph's psalm. Alone with God! No human eye Is here, with eager look, to pry Into the meaning of each sigh. Alone with God! No jealous glare Now stings me with its torturing stare; No human malice says beware! Alone with God! From earth's rude crowd, Alone with God! He only knows, Alone with God! He mercy lends. Alone with God! He feeleth well The soul's pent life that will o'erswell; The life-long want no words may tell. Alone with God! Still nearer bend, Alone with God! With suppliant mien Alone with God! Safe in Thy arms, O, shield me from life's wild alarms! O, save me from life's fearful harms! Alone with God! Oh, sweet to me, This cover, to whose shades I flee, To breathe repose in Thee-in Thee. A PERFECT DAY. Go, glorious day! Here, while you pass, I make this sign; Earth, swinging on her silent way, Will bear me back unto this hour divine, And I will softly say: "Once thou wert mine. "Wert mine, O, perfect day! The light unknown, soaring from sea and shore, The forest's eager blaze, The flaming torches that the autumn bore, "Were mine, the brooding airs, The pulsing music of the weedy brooks, The jeweled fishes and the mossy lairs, Wherein shy creatures, with their free, bright looks, Taught blessed lessons never found in books; "All mine, the peace of God, When it was joy enough to breathe and be, The peace of Nature oozing from her sod, When face to face with her the soul was free, And far the false, wild strife it fain would flee." Stay, beautious day! Yet, why pray I? Thy lot, like mine, to fade. Thy light, like yonder mountain's golden haze, Must merge into the morrow's misty shade; And I, an exile in the alien street, Still gazing back, yearn toward the vision fleet. "Once thou wert mine!" I'll say, And comfort so my heart as with old wine. Poor pilgrims! oft we walk the self-same way, To weep its change, to kneel before the shrine The heart once builded to a happy day, When dear it died. I'll say: "Oh, day divine, Life presses sore; but once, once thou wert mine." UPON the lonely shore I lie; The wind is faint, the tide is low. Someway there seems a human sigh In the great waves that inward flow, As if all love, and loss, and pain, That ever swept their shining track, Had met within the caverned main, And, rising, moaningly came back. Upon the lonely shore I lie, And gaze along its level sands. Upon the sea-beach, cool and still, THE LOVER. NAY, I will be thy Lover, thou my Love! This is my joy, to serve thee,-to exalt 415 Thy name, to call thee Queen of all thy kind; Sovereign of life and love to me thou art. I marry thy rich melodies of mind; I see thee large and fair without a fault. INADEQUACY. I SAW a fallen swallow on the street Beat on the cruel stone its wounded wing, It sought to soar, as if on pinion fleet; It stirred with inchoate song, so sweet, so sweet, That died unsung. The poor, low murmuring, Wrung of its pain, how pitiful a thing, While mocked the Heaven it could not rise to meet! JOHN F. HOWARD. Retown of Clinton, Clinton county, N. Y., in EV. JOHN F. HOWARD was born in the 1862. At an early age he set out to discover what facts and data were obtainable in the world, and after his seminary and college experience studied theology and is now pastor of the Unitarian church in Gardner, Mass. Mr. Howard is a pleasant speaker, often rising to eloquence, and as a word painter he has few equals. His sermons are scholarly and full of ideas. Among his first poems was "The New Minister," which appeared in the New York Christian Advocate in 1890, and to which attention was called in an editorial paragraph. The poem fit so many churches that the writer received requests for copies from all quarters. Since then he has found a ready market for his poetical and prose productions in a large number of periodicals and magazines. In the fall of 1892 he received a letter of thanks from Lord Tennyson, son of the poet, for his poem "Tennyson," which appeared first in the Christian Register. J. J. F. BABY'S MAMMA. SICKNESS is a weary picture when we see it at its best, When its bleak and lonely landscape by the sunbeams is caressed. Mind is drifting, hope is waning, though the touch so loving be, From the hand of her who held us when a child upon her knee. Pain of body, pain of spirit, failing sleep or rest to find, Notwithstanding loving mother, notwithstanding sister kind. Yet how harder is the ordeal when no care like this is known When the hours are passed in silence and we bear our lot alone. Sickness is a weary picture framed in poverty and want While through my uncurtained window death is looking pale and gaunt, While all day no food that's longed for e'er by loving hand is given, And my sad and only pleasure is to lie and think of Heaven. Not the only, for our little poor neglected child is here, Piling blocks to make his houses as he's piled them for a year, Waiting till his toiling mother shall return to him at night, May be, Heaven, I can bear it, may be, Heaven, it is right! By my bedside many an hour he has sat and in his way Done things for the sick so needful, through the slowly passing day. Every morning his sad mother leaves his dinner, cold and poor, On a stand where I can reach it for him near my bedroom door. As we eat it here together and my darling calls it "good," Oft I tell him we would give him something better if we could. When he says his "poor sick papa" will be well again sometime, Comes the vision like the music of a long-forgotten chime. When my wife, my baby's mother, comes to us again at night, "Heaven bless her hands," I murmur, holding them so soft and white. Little thought I of dependence on them when I made her mine, When the sweet "I will" was spoken in yon golden autumn time! The sweet vision of her spirit, so devoted and so pure, Ought through all her daily absence, help me sorrow to endure. Thus one eve I thought, and ever after I was more resigned, Played with baby at my bedside, came at last to peace of mind. Those dark years of pain are over; baby's words at last come true, I am well, and baby's mamma stays with him the whole day through. Brightly shines the fire at evening on the carpet where he plays, And his mamma wears the color in her cheeks of other days. Mind is drifting, hope is waning, through the livelong day no more; Blessings on the baby's mamma, and his play upon the floor. LIFE. ONE by one the rills of childhood blended in the wider stream, Blended with their song and laughter like the music of a dream. |