Where'er her twinking feet did pass,
Beneath them greener grew the grass;
The song-birds ruffled their small throats
To swell for her their blithest notes.
But when she went, the blushing day
Sank into silence chill and gray,
The dark its sable vans unfurled,
And sudden night possessed the world.
O fond desires that wake in vain!
She ne'er will come to us again;
And now, like vanished perfume sweet,
Her memory grows more vague and fleet.
Yet we rejoice that morn by morn
The sad old world seems less forlorn,
Since once so bright a vision came
To touch our lives with heavenly flame,
And show to our bewildered eyes
What beauty dwells in paradise.

A ROMAN QUEEN.

IMPERIOUS on her ebon throne

She sits, a queen, in languid ease; Her lustrous locks are loosely blown

Back from her brow by some stray breeze Lost in that vast, bright hall of state, Where thronging suppliants fear and wait.

A dreamy fragrance, fine and rare,

Of sandal, nard and precious gum, With balmy sweetness fills the air, And mingles with the incense from A quaint and costly azure urn, Where Indian spices ever burn.

A jeweled serpent, wrought in gold, Coils round her white and naked arm; Her purple tunic, backward rolled,

Reveals the full and regal charm Of her fair neck, and ivory breast, Half veiled beneath her broidered vest.

Her eyelids droop upon her eyes, And curtained by the silken lash, The smoldering fire that in them lies

Is scarcely seen, save when a flash, Like that which lights the polar snow, Gleams from the dusky depths below.

Her proud, cold lips are lightly wreathed
In smiles, as if with high disdain
She scorns to show her hate is sheathed,
And that he sues not all in vain
For favors of her haughty will,
Or e'en love's rarer guerdon still.

He stands before her white and fierce; His bosom with swift passion shakes; His burning vision seeks to pierce

Her very soul; he pleads; he wakes Within her heart a wild desire, That flames and mounts like sudden fire.

A subtle glance, a whispered word,
A waving of her perfumed hand.
He feels his secret prayer is heard-

That she will know and understand;
The queen is hid, and for a space
A love-swayed woman holds her place.

He bows, he leans toward the throne;
Her breath is warm upon his cheek;
She murmurs, and in every tone

He hears the love she dares not speak; What though the surging hundreds press? No eye shall see her swift caress.

Let him beware; he toys with fate;
False as the glittering serpent is
On her white arm, her love to hate

Shall change eftsoons; then every kiss She gives him with her fickle breath Shall be surcharged with secret death.

VANISHED.

It was but yesterday I saw his sheep,
The while he led them up the height to feed,
And heard him merrily pipe upon his reed,

And mock the echoes from yon rocky steep; 'Twas yesterday I found him fast asleep,

His flock forgot and wantoning in the mead, His pipe flung lightly by with idle heed, And shadows lying round him, cool and deep. But though I seek I shall not find him more, In dewy valley or on grassy height;

I listen for his piping-it is o'er,

From out mine ears gone is the music quite There on the hill the sheep feed as before, But Pan, alas, has vanished from my sight!

IF IT WERE.

LOVE, that thou lov'st me not, too well I know;
Yet shouldst thou look to-night on my dead face
For the last time on earth, and there shouldst

trace

The silent meaning of a heavy woe,
Wouldst thou not feel a pang that it were so?
Would not regret within thy heart find place,
That thou didst stay the guerdon and the grace

Thy lover so besought thee to bestow?
Wouldst thou not feel a want unknown before?
A something gone familiar grown so long?
A vanished light-a ship gone from the shore-
A presence past from out the world's great
throng?

O Love, wouldst thou not miss the voice of yore? The song-bird flown, wouldst thou not miss the song?

JOY IN SORROW.

THE Wan November sun is westering;

The pale, proud year puts all her glory by;
Beneath her blue, bare feet her vestures lie,
And white and faint she stands a-shivering:
And yet the world's great heart is quickening
Beneath dead leaves and grass grown sere
and dry,

And through the silence of the somber sky
Throb swift pulsations of a forefelt spring.
So all our sorrow hath a core of bliss;

Some prophecy of pleasure tempers pain
In every heart, and through our bitterness
Strikes a fierce joy that not a pang is vain;
Life hath no hidden good that life shall miss,
For with all loss is mixed some god-like gain.

CA

CALLIE L. BONNEY.

ALLIE L. BONNEY was born in Peoria, Ill., where her father, Hon. C. C. Bonney, was a young lawyer just beginning practice, who shortly afterward removed to Chicago, where he has since resided. Miss Bonney is of Anglo-Norman origin, being descended from the noble De Bon family, who figured in the days of William the Conqueror. Afterward the spelling of the name became De Bonaye, and later assumed its present form. Miss Bonney attended the best schools of Chicago, and afterward graduated from the famous Chestnut Street Seminary for young ladies, then located in Philadelphia, but since removed to Ogontz. While purely, almost divinely feminine in every respect, she yet inherits from her legal ancestry a mental strength that is very decided, though not masculine. She has published two prose works, "Wit and Wisdom of Bulwer" and "Wisdom and Eloquence of Webster." She is a proficient French scholar, and has made translations of many of Victor Hugo's shorter works. Her first writing for periodicals was a story, which was printed serially in a Chicago Masonic magazine; and since then she has written poems, sketches, and stories for a great number of periodicals. She has written the words of a number of songs that have been set to music by F. Nicholls Crouch, the composer of "Kathleen Mavourneen." Eben H. Bailey, and W. H. Doane. She has written two operettas, one set to music by Mr. Bailey, and the other by Mr. Doane, and has dramatized the Rienzi" of Bulwer, an author who retains a very warm spot in her affections.

Miss Bonney has been in delicate health for many years. Several Chicago physicians having expressed the belief that she could not live another winter in Chicago, or indeed anywhere in the east, which opinion was endorsed by Boston medical authorities, she removed to California in 1887, and spent the winter in San Diego, and the subsequent spring located in San Francisco, where the climate evidently agrees with her so well that she thinks she is reasonably certain of a further lease of life for a few years.

Miss Bonney's features are very fair and delicate, her hair is of a changing brown, bronze in shadow, and full of tints of unwashed gold where the sunlight seeks kinship in its meshes. She has what are known as "Irish eyes," violet at times, and again darker, with very full, decided eyebrows.

Although Miss Bonney did not begin writing till the year 1882, and the most of her work has been done while in bed or on her lounge, she has accomplished a great deal, and has gained a recognition that is general and gratifying, among the letters of compliment and praise she has received being several from Lord Lytton, John G. Whittier, and others. E M.

AT VESPERS.

WHERE fair Ancona lifts her walls

On Adriatic waters blue,
And sunset's last departing ray

Glints with red gold cerulean hue
Of foam-kissed wave, there floats a song
From sweet-voiced women on the main,
Italian heart-song, thrilling clear,
That echoes back a glad refrain.

Mio caro, night draws near,

Twilight lets her curtain fall; Yet, though heavy seas divide,

Heart to heart may softly call. Saints preserve my sailor lad

As he roams o'er silvery sea; Night wind, take my message hence, Bear his answer back to me.

The song floats on, its music swells,

Then dies away in echo sweet, While murmuring wind and singing wave The happy cadence soft repeat; And o'er the gold-touched billows fair Then sailor voices take the strain, And answer comes through gloaming mist, In second stanza's sweet refrain.

Mio caro, though apart,

Close your eyes in happy sleep;
Bending from the land of dreams,
Angels fair love's vigils keep.
Stars shine softly through the blue,
Faded is the sunset light,
Yet o'er darkling waters wide

Heart to heart may say good-night.

HOW CHRISTMAS CAME.
HEAVEN'S fairest star

Trembled a moment in the gold-flecked blue;
Then, earthward dropped,

Was in an empty cradle lost to view,

Till angel came,

And, softly parting back the curtains, smiled, While hosts proclaimed

The birth of Bethlehem's King in new-born child.

AN EASTER CUSTOM.

I MET her Easter morning

In the old Cathedral aisle,

And, early at the service,

She gave me bow and smile.

One Rabbi thought these baubles all in vain,

The brother found in Home the blissful rest,
While Judah, tallest of the wise men, held
Keeping tradition of the elders best.
Silent till then there sat within the court,
A fair-haired boy with lilies in his hand,
Too young, unlearned, the reverend fathers thought
The import of their talk to understand.
"Nay, nay, my fathers, he alone finds Rest
Who loveth God with his whole soul and heart,
And," the child added, reverently and low,

"His brother, as of his own life a part:
He greater is than wealth, or power, or fame,
Better than happy home, than honored age,
Above tradition, to himself a law-"

Thus holy child instructed Rabbi Sage.

SUNSET.

The golden gleam of the Western sun,
In a flood of amber light,
Streamed softly in at the window, where
It lingered to say "Good-night."

-Good-Night.