Brown leaves are prest against the pavements wet, O'er which, with cumbrous tread The coal man, with his load on shoulder set, Ah, doleful noises, mist and falling leaves, I turn me from the pane: Her passing scepter sobbing Fall bereaves, And Winter wails again. Blaze thou! and warm my saddened heart, O fire, Light up this shadowy room; With books, and friends, and logs piled high and higher, Let old King Winter come. SONNET-A KINDLY LOOK. A KINDLY look, a word of commendation, While struggling on 'gainst trials and temptation, And pour into these sad hearts consolation. For reclaimed sinners shall be white as snow. And may God's blessings rest upon thee, when And where thy ministering footsteps go. BE PREPARED. No door so thick, no bolt so strong, But that Death enters in at last. Then watch with care; repent thy sin, Lest unaware he enters in When time for penitence is past. LIFE. When I'am a man Sings the sweet voice of boyhood When I'am a man. O, when! O, when! From the grave future Rings manhood's clear echo If I were young again, then. O, Then! -Life. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS was born in a suburb of Dublin, on the 13th of June, 1865. His birthplace, the residence of his father's uncle, was a quaint, castellated house, in a park full of beautiful forest trees, and containing within its limits a lake and an island. Here the future poet's childhood was spent in part, and it was an ideal home for a dreamy imaginative child. It was an intellectual centre in its day. Mr. Yeats' father is an artist, who having been at the Bar for some years and with great distinction, gave up the profession, where he was safe to gain honor and wealth, for Art, in the following of which he has no doubt been happier, for he is a born artist. Springing from a very ancient and distinguished family he married the daughter of a race of English settlers in Ireland,—people who have brought with their English blood certain honorable qualities of seriousness, of determination, of mercantile probity and mercantile success, to add on to the Celtic qualities gained by intermarriage with the fascinating Irish. Of this marriage there are two daughters and a son, be-. sides the poet, who is the eldest born. Mr. Yeats was at school in London and Dublin. He did not enter a university, and curiously enough, his first bias was for scientific pursuits,—it must have been for those things which appeal to the faculty of wonder. However, he soon turned to poetry, pure and simple, and though his performance as an art student promised great things, he has rather neglected art for poetry. He dreamed away his later boyhood a good deal, which perhaps was wise, for he is of delicate physique. His first poetry published was in the Dublin University Review, and excited wide-spread interest. In the present year he has published a volume of poems, which has at once given him a position; it has been received as the work of a new poet promising great things by all the important London reviews. At present he is editing some of the Camelot Classics; his "Irish Fairy and Folk Lore" has appeared, and it is to my mind, the best edited of the whole series. He is engaged also on literary work for many magazines and newspapers. His is a subtle genius, rejoicing in the strange and the exotic, but withal, having such a virile quality behind it, such a faculty of delight in the deeds of heroes, that he will be saved from the pitfalls of those who seek the marvellous. In looks Mr. Yeats is as picturesque as one could desire,-hair, beard, and beautiful eyes of a southern darkness, with a face of a fine oval, and a clear, dusky color. Nature has written the poet upon his face. And his poetry is enhanced in beauty if read to you by his own voice, which has a thousand qualities of richness, of softness, and of flexibility. K. T. KANVA, THE INDIAN, ON GOD. I PASSED along the water's edge below the humid trees, My spirit rocked in evening's hush, the rushes round my knees, My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase Each other round in circles; and I heard the eldest speak: "Who holds the world between His bill and makes us strong or weak Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky, The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye." I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk: For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide." A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes Brimful of starlight, and he said, "The Stamper of the Skies, He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?" I passed a little further and I heard a peacock say: "Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay, He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night His lanquid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light." AN OLD SONG RE-SUNG. Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snowwhite feet. She bid me take love easy as the leaves grow on the tree; But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree. In a field by the river my love and I did stand, And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow white hand. She bid me take life easy as the grass grows on the weirs; But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. QUATRAINS AND APHORISMS. THE child who chases lizards in the grass, II. Two spirit-things a man hath for his friends- |