M

KATE VANNAH.

ISS LETITIA KATHERINE VANNAH was born in Gardiner, Maine, October 27, 1855. She is the daughter, and only child, of I. G. Vannah and wife, of Gardiner, and is of German and Irish extraction. Her paternal ancestors lived in Saxony, where they bore the name Werner. After passing through the grammar and high schools of her home town, she attended St. Joseph's Academy, at Emmittsburg, (ten miles from Gettysburg,) Md., graduating in 1874, and taking the first medal in English class and in music. She was fond of writing and memorizing poems at a very early age; but her first production of verse of importance was the "Farewell" of her graduating class, written at seventeen. While at Emmittsburg, she wrote in prose and verse for several periodicals; and on returning to Gardiner she began to write often for Boston, New York and Washington newspapers, as well as for those of her own state. She has since been engaged regularly in literary work, having made a specialty of poetry, a volume of which, containing about seventy pieces, she issued under the name of "Verses," in 1883; her principal work, however, has been in music, which, she says, is "the dominant power and pleasure" in her life. After graduation from St. Joseph's, she studied music with Ernst Perabo. She is mistress of the piano and organ. Her musical compositions, "Come-For the Sun is Going Down," "Three Roses," "O Salutaris" "Veni Creator" and "Parting" are most widely known, and have been very popular and remunerative. many years she has contributed musical criticism to several Maine newspapers. Her pen has been most busy, latterly, however, with verse-matter and personal sketches; several of the latter, as well as occasional literary criticisms and poems, having appeared in the Boston Evening Traveller.

For

Miss Vannah is a person of remarkable variety of accomplishments; besides being versed in English and American literature, and cultured musically, she is a notable French scholar, and a respectable artist. She is throughly interested in life, and with the highest standards of love and duty. In religion she is a Roman Catholic. Those best acquainted with her, however, know her to be first of all a Christian. In friendship her ardor and devotion are remarkable. E. R. C.

INDIAN SUMMER.

WE saw the happy robins build their nests,
We watched the apple-blossoms bloom and fall,
Together knelt, and searched for violets-
Counted the petals of the Marguerites;

Kissed, each, a rose and wore it on his heart

Always together-each the other's world.
Fair Summer flung herself on Autumn's breast
Tired and flushed, her cheeks incarnadined
At thought of having all unrobed to stand
Before a world, while Winter wove a shroud
For her who never could come back to us,
For her who brought such gifts to you and me.
With tenderness we said good bye to her-
Then heard the sweeping equinoctial winds
Singing, three days and nights, a requiem.
O Love! That wail was not for Summer, dead,
But for us two who unclasped hands that night
And said such bitter words ere we did part
That Summer, who remembered, left her grave,
And showed her face as perfect as of yore
Against the blackness of bleak Autumn's breast:
Like golden amber beads that glow against
An ebon rosary in the hands of Death!

"THE LOOKING-GLASSES."

I.

THREE death-still pools in a lonely vale-
Still! And so deep, so runneth the tale,
No man hath been able their depths to sound,
No mortal in all the fair country around-
God's secret are they I ween.

II.

And up on the hill, not far away,
The dead are lying, still as they.
The dead whose bodies are in the ground,
Whose souls are in deeps Love may not sound
Till the sea gives up her dead.

III.

The sun shines warm on the gravestones white
This fair June morning. Look! the light
Leads to the black pools' surface a grace:
Like a happy smile on a dead man's face

Whose soul may be lost forever!

RECONCILED.

IN no more fitting place could we have met,
At no more fitting time, a wailing night.
We who for years have shunned each other's sight
Who strove to bury Love beyond Regret,
Who begged of God the power to forget

Each other's eyes, voice, lips-who did so blight And bruise each other's hearts with all Pride's might... .

Just the dead body of our friend-warm yet

LAST year I knew naught of thee save thy name,
Of love my life seemed full as it could hold.
Not by one word of warning was I told
Thy royal advent. Life's face looked the same
As it had looked for years, when swift there came
Her King. Cor Cordium! how was I to know
A regal rose would leap forth from the snow
To startle, and to blind me with the flame
Of its wild beauty! See, the white gull dips
Her breast into the ocean's murmuring lips;
And see upon its bosom the great ships:
They only know the surface of the sea

Not dreaming of its depths. Love, none knew me—
I did not know myself 'till I loved thee.

FIRST LOVE.

“For God in cursing gives us better gifts than men in benediction."-Aurora Leigh.

A HUMAN friend was granted unto me,
And I, bewildered by my sweet, strange love,
With eyes on earth forgot that from above

My blessing came. Blinded, I could not see God's image in my friend. Each came to be The other's god. Nor future nor the past

We heeded—we forgot that Death came last: Men oft call love what is to God idolatry.

My lover looked within my eyes and swore"No power on earth, nor yet in heaven, should take

My love from him. If I at first the shore

Of dread eternity should gain, he'd break God's law, and take his life, to share my fate." One heard, who mercifully changed our love to hate.

LAST LOVE.

Lo! here I stand all trembling and dismayed, Within the still, sweet garden of thy heart.

O Love! all is so white, I feel afraid

To stir or speak or breathe. No more to part