Susan Marr Spalding was born in Bath, Me., and educated in a seminary there. From early girlhood she wrote verse, her sonnets being graceful and tender. At the death of her parents she lived with her uncle, a clergyman, in New York. She married Mr. Spalding, a literary man, and made her home in Philadelphia.

Two shall be born, the whole wide world apart,

And speak in different tongues, and have no thought
Each of the other's being; and have no heed;
And these, o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
Shall cross, escaping wreck; defying death;

And, all unconsciously, shape every act to this one end
That, one day, out of darkness, they shall meet
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.

And two shall walk some narrow way of life

So nearly side by side that, should one turn
Ever so little space to right or left,

They needs must stand acknowledged face to face.

And yet, with wistful eyes that never meet.

With groping hands that never clasp; and lips

Calling in vain to ears that never hear;

They seek each other all their weary days

And die unsatisfied-and that is fate.

A HOLY NATION.

BY RICHARD REALF.

Richard Realf was born in England in 1834 of poor parents and began writing poetry at an early age. His early work attracted the attention of Tennyson, Miss Mitford, Miss Jameson, Miss Martineau, and others, and they secured the publication of his volume, "Guesses at the Beautiful." He dabbled some in sculpture, and even studied agricultural science. In 1854 he came to New York, where he wrote stories of slum life and assisted in establishing some institutions for the relief of the poor. He joined the first free soil parties moving to Kansas and was arrested. He did newspaper work until he joined John Brown's party. He was Brown's secretary of state. He was arrested in connection with the Harper's Ferry affair, enlisted in 1862, was wounded, taught a black school in South Carolina in 1867, and for years led a hand to mouth existence, all that time writing poetry, some of it of the most exquisite beauty. Family troubles resulted in his suicide in San Francisco about 1875.

Let Liberty run onward with the years,
And circle with the seasons; let her break
The tyrant's harshness, the oppressor's spears;
Bring ripened recompenses that shall make
Supreme amends for sorrow's long arrears;
Drop holy benison on hearts that ache;
Put clearer radiance into human eyes,
And set the glad earth singing to the skies.

Clean natures coin pure statutes. Let us cleanse
The hearts that beat within us; let us mow
Clear to the roots our falseness and pretense,
Tread down our rank ambitions, overthrow
Our braggart moods of puffed self-consequence,
Plow up our hideous thistles which do grow
Faster than maize in May time, and strike dead
The base infections our low greeds have bred.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.

BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

Alfred Tennyson was born at Lincolnshire in 1809. In 1828 he wrote, with his brother, the "Poems by Two Brothers." He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he met his friend, Arthur Hallam, upon whose death he wrote "In Memoriam." When Wordsworth died in 1850, the laureateship was given to Tennyson; later he was made a Baron. He died at Aldworth, on the Isle of Wight, in 1892, and has been given a place in Westminster Abbey near the grave of Chaucer. Other of his longer poems beside the one mentioned above are: "The Princess," "Maud," "Enoch Arden," and the "Idyls of the King."

THERE IS NO DEATH.

BY J. L. MCCREERY.

This beautifully touching poem is the creation of Mr. J. L. McCreery, a native of Iowa, and at one time editor of the Delaware County Journal, of that state. The poem was written in 1863 and was first published in Arthur's Home Magazine in July of that year. The authorship of the poem was for many years erroneously attributed to Lord Lytton, the English poet. A thorough investigation carried on by Lippincott's a few years ago fully established the authorship. The poem has been printed in every state of the Union, in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canada, and even in Australia. It has gone into dozens of school books and been incorporated in scores of miscellaneous collections of poetry. It has been quoted in full or in part at least five times on the floor of Congress. Mr. McCreery has for the past few years been a resident of the national capital and his best poems have been collected into a volume entitled "Songs of Toil and Triumph."

There is no death, the stars go down
To rise upon some other shore,
And bright in heaven's jeweled crown
They shine forever more.

There is no death! the forest leaves
Convert to life the viewless air;

The rocks disorganize to feed

The hungry moss they bear.

There is no death! the dust we tread

Shall change, beneath the summer showers,

To golden grain, or mellow fruit,

Or rainbow-tinted flowers.

There is no death! the leaves may fall,

The flowers may fade and pass away—

They only wait, through wintry hours,
The warm, sweet breath of May.

There is no death! the choicest gifts

That heaven hath kindly lent to earth Are ever first to seek again

The country of their birth.

And all things that for growth of joy
Are worthy of our love or care,
Whose loss has left us desolate,
Are safely garnered there.

Though life become a dreary waste,
We know its fairest, sweetest flowers,
Transplanted into paradise,

Adorn immortal bowers.

The voice of bird-like melody

That we have missed and mourned so long

Now mingles with the angel choir

In everlasting song.

There is no death! although we grieve
When beautiful, familiar forms
That we have learned to love are torn
From our embracing arms.

Although with bowed and breaking heart,
With sable garb and silent tread,
We bear their senseless dust to rest,
And say that they are "dead."

They are not dead! they have but passed
Beyond the mists that blind us here

Into the new and larger life

Of that serener sphere.

They have but dropped their robe of clay
To put their shining raiment on;
They have not wandered far away-
They are not "lost" or "gone."