Amid the splendor of emblazoned gules,
Could be more fair, or sweetlier blend in one
The light of heaven and the glow of earth.

Ibid.
SYMPATHY.
He who steps on stones is glad to feel
The smallest spray of moss beneath his feet.

- Ibid.
MELANCHOLY.
For beauty such as hers is like a breath
Of distant music stealing through the hush
Of fragrant gardens, and like music draws
Its rarest charm from gentle melancholy.
But even a pearl will flush with sudden lights
If but the sun fall on it.

- Ibid.
HOPE.
Full many a vessel threads the gates of morn,
With spreading sails and gold upon its prow,
That ere the eve will bend beneath the storm.
And we -- how know we if our moments run
To break on joy or sorrow? We can hope,
But hope itself is born of doubt, my friend,
Always in bud, but never quite a flower.

- Ibid.
LOSS.
It was a deadly blow! A blow like that
Which swooping unawares from out the night
Dashes a man from some high starlit peak
Into a void of cold and hurrying waves.
'Twas not the loss alone. In that wild hour
Of first resistance, anguish, and despair,
He felt he could have borne her simple loss
So God had taken her. But loss of love!
Loss of belief in all the radiant past,
Of hope in years to come - ah, who but those
Whose lives have felt the shock of utter wreck,
Can rightly speak of what that hour of doom
Was to this man of sorrow!

- Ibid.
WOMANHOOD.

Youth has needs, I know,
And headlong yearnings like the mountain streams
That rush adown the nearest path they find
To meet the sounding river; but, oh child,
In womanhood the heart is like the sea,
Deep, deep, and self-contained, but yearning still
Through all its mighty billows for a shore
To break in strength upon.

- Ibid.
DUTY.
Hath the Spirit of all beauty
Kissed you in the path of duty.

-On the Threshold.

SOLITUDE.
Have you listened to the singing
Of the meadow-grasses springing?
Heard the shadows, whispering, tell
How they woo the asphodel?

-Ibid,
OCEAN.

The free
Mighty, music-haunted sea.

- Ibid.
SECRECY.
She held a secret in her in most thought;
A secret which in shyly hiding, she
Revealed to all around unconsciously;
As timid violets lade the ambient air
With their hearts' richest fragrance, unaware
The fragrance whispers that the flower is there.

- Isabel Maynor. STARS.

The very stars
Tremble above, as though the voice divine
Reverberated through the dread expanse.

-Sunrise from the Mountains.

UNCONSCIOUSNESS.
She wore so grand a look, you see,

Unconsciously;
A lily musing in a beam
Of starlight, were as apt as she
To turn aside and fondly dream
Of its own shadow in the stream.

-The Barricade.
MAIDENHOOD.
You see she was a maiden, sir,

That till that time had never known
What 'twas to have another stir

The current of life's undertone.
The falling shadows in the woods'

Deep solitudes,
My mother glance, the sudden flow
Of waters in the mountain floods,
Had moved her, but such passion, no;
'Twas sunlight falling upon snow.

- Ibid.
AUTUMN.
To live, to love and then to die

While life and love are pure and sweet
As April's mingled smile and sigh

In which all hopeful fancies meet,
Is not so sad; more sad to me,

It were to see
The falling leaves, the clouding sky,
To look around and miss the free
Glad singing of the birds, and sigh
In vain for hopes and days gone by.

- Ibid.

CARMEN SYLVA.

E

out.

said that Elizabeth wrote poetry in childhood. She kept on writing after she had passed from girlhood into womanhood. But she kept the secret of her composition to herself. After the death of her little girl she turned to literature in earnest as the only comfort of her life beside caring for her people. She no longer concealed her gifts and aspirations for authorship. She translated poems, tales and novels to learn the writer's art, of which she admitted she knew nothing. She was hard at original compositions when the Turko-Russian war broke

She and her husband did noble work in the war — the Prince in the field and the Princess in the hospital. In acknowledgment of his services, Rumania was recognized as an independent kingdom in 1881, and Charles and Elizabeth became King and Queen of Rumania.

Since the end of the war Elizabeth has been untiring in her literary activity. In 1880 the first book was published with “ Carmen Sylva" on the title page. It was a volume of poems, translated from Rumanian into German. The next year she published her first book of original poems, entitled “Stürme." I cannot here even enumerate all the books that I have described in the introduction to

' Songs of Toil." The mere enumeration would indicate the Queen's remarkable productivity. In 1882 appeared “Die Hexe" (poems), and "Jehovah” (poem); in 1883 “ Meine Ruh'" (poems); in 1884 Mein Rhein" (poems). Other poems

· Mein Buch " (poem), and a collection of poems upon Egypt, and the “ Handwerkerlieder," the second part of which has been published only in Songs of Toil." The Queen's prose writings are numerous, consisting of some fourteen publications, being of novels, stories and tales. Such is the work that this gifted woman has accomplished in less than a decade. It is amazing that one woman could have done as much, and that woman a queen upon a throne.

J. E. B.

LIZABETH, Princess of Wied, now known as

Carmen Sylva, Queen of Rumania, was born December 29, 1843, in the ancestral castle of her family at Neuwied, on the banks of the Rhine. Her childhood was passed amid influences that made her a woman long before the first bloom of youth was past. Her life was solitary. She had no other companionship than that of her invalid little brother; she did not play with boys and girls - she talked with the friends of her parents, with artists, poets and philosophers. She had duties and tasks that would have made her life a drudge, if she had not possessed imagination. This was her solace. It was her delight to dream, to let her fancy play, especially when she was at Monrepos, the family summer home, and could wander through the Westerwald and listen to the singing of the birds and the signing of the trees. She began to write poetry when a mere child. At nine years of age she read poetry, learned it, and wrote it, all with great ardor. At fourteen she wrote tragedies. She was chafing under her restraints. She said: “I cannot be gentle; I must rage." A drama of horrors was the result.

When the princess was eighteen, a series of sorrows befell her. First her invalid brother died, then her dearest friend, then her father. For several years, now, she studied, travelled and taught. She always had a strong inclination to become a teacher. When she was twenty-four years old she had about made up her mind to prepare for the examination with this end in view. Her friends wanted her to marry and said she was fit for a throne. She laughingly said to them one day that the only throne that could lure her would be the Rumanian, for in Rumania there would be a chance to accomplish some good. There was no king of Rumania at that time. But in 1866 an acquaintance of Elizabeth's was put at the head of the Rumania state, with the title of Prince Charles I, of Rumania. Her romantic acquaintance with this Hohenzollern prince is well known, - how, when a girl visiting in Berlin, she fell down a palace stair and was caught by him at the landing. Her marriage with him was less romantic. It was arranged by her mother in the German fashion. A day's courting and a month's engagement and the Princess of Wied became the Princess of Rumania. That was in November, 1869.

Elizabeth began at once to devote herself to the needs of her people. She established hospitals, schools, asylums, poor-unions, etc. It was not long before she came to be called the “Mother of her people." In 1874 she met with the greatest sorrow of her life. She lost her only child. The loss has proved the world's gain, for but for it we hould never have heard of Carmen Sylva. I have

are

I'm ground by grief, but the work is ill,
For notched and rusty my heart is, still.
The wheel is whirling, the stone has grit -
Fetch on your steel — shall I sharpen it ?

THE CARPENTER'S SONG.

My lot grew lighter day by day;

The children grew apace;
I built a little house last May -

No palace like that place.
And—" Father," said she, sure you know

That once we ate dry bread ? Into our own house now we go!"

The mother, she is dead!

Her house the undertaker made,

And not the carpenter; My grace unsaid, the pastor prayed

In loud tones over her. The day that's spent with merriment,

'Mid blossoms blue and red, No music lent - my heart was rent!

The mother, she is dead.

We pulled together many a year;

Like old bird-mates were we; But who e'er thinks of dying here

While both together be ?
Fast barred is every window-blind -

I care not what is said;
Yes, sell the house! I do not mind

The mother, she is dead!

FODDER-TIME.

How sweet the manger smells! The cows all listen

With outstretched necks, and with impatient

lowing;
They greet the clover, their content

now

HARRIET M. CONVERSE.

High in an attic room this decoration

In splendor wakens, where a man, deft-handed, Sets tiny bits of bright illumination

To shield his fading sight, his white locks banded With green shade. — What profits lamentation ?

The work's eternal God hath so commanded!

S

THE CHARWOMAN.

If only 'twere not Christmas Eve,

Nor bright other places, Nor loaded the boards I perceive,

Nor happy the faces,

And not so wretched at home,

And none of this whining And begging for bread when I come

By little cheeks pining

To-day for hunger again,

To deeply depress me! If they, who forget now my pain,

Could see it distress me!

Too listlessly come I and go;

All dirty I never Must faint in the twilight glow

But toil on forever.

COTCH by ancestry, American by birth — an

Six children I have to relieve

How blanched are their faces! If only 'twere not Christmas Eve,

Nor bright other places!

THE STONE-CUTTER.

We hammer, hammer, hammer on and on,

Day-out, day-in, throughout the year,
In blazing heat and tempests drear;

God's house we slowly heavenward rearWe'll never see it done!

We hammer, hammer, hammer, might and main.

The sun torments, the rain drops prick,
Our eyes grow blind with dust so thick;

Our name in dust, too, fadeth quick —
No glory and no gain!

We hammer, hammer, hammer ever on.

O blessed God on Heaven's throne,
Dost thou take care of every stone

And leave the toiling poor alone,
Whom no one looks upon ?