How she tried for Charley, till
I sailed in and cut her out?
Now she's taken Jack McBride,
I believe its all from pique-
Threw him over once you know,-

Hates me so she'll scarcely speak.

O yes! Grace Church, Brown, and that,
Pa won't mind expense at last,
I'll be off his hands for good;

Cost a fortune two years past.
My trousseau shall outdo Maude's,

I've carte blanche from Pa, you know; Mean to have my dress from Worth! Won't she just be raving though?

A SONG OF FLEETING LOVE.
LOVE has wings as light as a bird,
Guileless he looks, as a dove, of wrong;
Whatever his song, be it brief or long,
It still has this for an overword:
Love has wings!

Though to-day the truant may stay,
Though he wooes and sues and sings,
Only sorrow to maids he brings;
Pout him and flout him, laugh him away:
Love has wings!

Hold your pulses calm, unstirred-
Calm and cool as a woodland pool,
Let not his song your heart befool;
List, through it all, for the overword.
Love has wings!

UNDER THE BEECHES.

IN the gray beech shadows

Dewey violets hide,

Anemone and blood-root
Blossom side by side;
And the tall, white trillium

On her slender stem,
Like some pale Court beauty
Bends to them.

In the gray beech shadows

It was years ago

When last I saw the wind-flower

And Spring-beauty blow: But my heart grows tender With a yearning wild

For the woods I strayed in

When a child.

Is there any dainty

Tasting half so sweet As the wild May-apple That we used to eat? Any costly jewel

With as rich a glow

As the red rose-heart showed Long ago?

QUATRAINS.

THE MAXIM OF APOLLONIUS. Better in some mean shrine beside the way To find a statue of ivory and gold, Than in a lofty temple to behold A huge, coarse figure of the common clay. THE FALLING STAR.

See where yon star falls headlong, flashing
Across the purple twilight air!—

An Angel bears to earth from heaven
The answer to a mortal's prayer.

A WOMAN'S CHOICE.

No laurel-nay! Give me heartsease, I pray. Laurel grows on the heights so lone and cold; But heartsease clusters by the warm threshold, And brightens with its blossoms all the day.

LARGESS.

Ah, when a kingly soul doth largess give, How far its worth exceeds the gift itself! The slightest thing outweighs a miser's pelf When round it cluster memories that live.

THE UNWRITTEN MESSAGE.

To carry thought how weak
Are words, mere idle signs.
Heart-deeps to heart-deeps speak
Between the lines.

OF TIRELESS PATIENCE.

(A Persian Fable.)

Before the close-barred gate of paradise

A poor man watched a thousand years; then dozed One little instant only, with dulled eyes;

That instant open swung the gate-and closed.

SEPTEMBER.

Lush juices of ripe fruits; splashed color flung From Frost's first palette-purple, gold and red; The last sweet song the meadow-lark has sung, Dirge of the Summer dead.

NOW.

Has one a tender thought of me? Speak it (I pray!) O friend, to-day.

To-morrow betwixt me and thee

Like a shut door the grave shall be.

ON READING

Little I love these lines of thine Drunk with rhythm as if with wine. Wheeling and reeling they recall Only the dance of a Bacchanal.

SORROW.

Ah no. Souls come of suffering,

Of midnight anguish, pain and tears,
Of bitter agonies that wring

The heart; of wrong that burns and sears.
I-what have I to do with these,
Shut up in soulless ease?

-The Wife of Pygmalion.

DANDELION.

The dandelion disks of gold
Like mimic suns the greensward dot,
In woods beyond the meadow-lot
The violet's shy blue eyes unfold.
Bid blithe farewell to winter's cold
And troop to field from hall or cot

The dandelion disks of gold
Like mimic suns the greensward dot.
-The Dandelion.

SONG.

Thou too must pass death's shadowy portal; Naught will remain but this song of thine. Life is fleeting but song is immortal;

Half of thy fame is also mine.

I dare not weep though I fade forever;
More from a century none could win.
This is my joy, that never, oh never,
Save for me, love, thy song had been!
The Dying Rose to the Nightingale.

GAIN.

I think God's mercy findeth many ways
To comfort us when least we would expect;
And even the rocks whereon our hopes are wrecked,
When we look back across the years, shall stand
Like hallowed altars reared by angel's hand.
For life tends on and upward. By mistakes
We learn. The hand which crushed our idols takes
Our own, and leads us to new shrines; whose light
Shines but the brighter for past error's night.
All sin and sorrows, shame, disgrace and pain,
Are made His ministers. From loss comes gain.
Out of all ill it must be He will make

Some good to come, for His dear Mercy's sake;
That we may find an angel in the place
Of the gaunt skeleton with grisly face.

-Told in a Parable.

SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON.

HE first time I had the pleasure of meeting

with her sweet but strong face, her gentle dignity, refinement of manner, and deep sympathy, which spoke in every act and look. As the months flew by, and our meetings became more frequent, I was so delighted with the genial and charming lady that I could not help loving her. Mrs. Bolton's father, John S. Knowles, was well called a gentleman of the "old school," from his fine manners and love of culture. Her mother, descended from the Stanleys, a prominent family of Hartford, Connecticut, was a woman of unusual force of character and sterling common sense. At fifteen she became a member of the family of her uncle, Colonel H. L. Miller, a lawyer of Hartford, whose extensive library was a delight, and whose house was a center for those who loved scholarship and refinement. The aunt, a descendant of Noah Webster, was a person of wide reading, exquisite tastes, and social prominence. Here the young girl saw Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Sigourney, and others like them, whose lives to her were a constant inspiration. Sarah became a practical and brilliant scholar, and graduated from the seminary founded by Catherine Beecher, one of the most thorough schools of the times. A small book of her poems was now published by the Appletons, and a serial novel in a New England paper. Soon after she married Mr. Charles E. Bolton, a graduate of Amherst College, and they removed to Cleveland, Ohio. In that city, remarkable for its benevolences, she became the first secretary of the Woman's Christian Association, using much of her time in visiting the poor.

When, in 1874, she assisted in the first temperance crusade in Northern Ohio, with scarcely an exception, her gentleness and Christian spirit paved the way for earnest conversation and blessed results. She was soon appointed assistant corresponding secretary of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union and as such was very successful. She was at one time one of the editors of the Congregationalist, and while in Boston proved herself an able journalist.

GOLDEN ROD.

O GOLDEN ROD! sweet golden rod!

Bride of the autumn sun;

Has he kissed thy blossoms this mellow morn, And tinged them one by one?

Did the crickets sing at thy christening,
When, in his warm embrace,

He gave thee love from his brimming cup,
And beauty, cheer, and grace?

He brightens the asters, but soon they fade;
He reddens the sumach tree;
The clematis loses its snowy bloom,

But he's true as truth to thee.

Scattered on mountain top or plain,

Unseen by human eye,

He turns thy fringes to burnished gold By love's sweet alchemy.

And then, when the chill November comes, And the flowers their work have done, Thou art still unchanged, dear golden rod, Bride of the autumn sun!

Her sceptre down among her own,
And be at rest from care and strife;
A peasant girl on queenly throne;
To Eric, a devoted wife.

It kisses, too, the sacred spring

Where Pagans came, in rudest dress,
To give themselves an offering
Unto the Sun of Righteousness.

I fancy mountains all aflame,
With crests as golden as the stars;
I see ships riding on the main,
With ruby decks and opal spars.

Clouds chase each other on the blue
Like children dancing on the wold;
But now fades out the brilliant hue;
Red grows to purple, then to gold,
And then to tender, dim twilight;
The boats lie silent in the bay;

The winds are hushed; chill grows the night,
And Nature sleeps at close of day.

BLINDED.

SHE lay like a rose-leaf on his cup;

He scarcely knew she was there at all,
Until, like the leaves of early fall,

For their precious hue, she was gathered up.

He knew too late that the flower was gone;
No fragrance left in the cup for him:
Alas! that he did not clasp the brim
With tender hands in the early dawn

Of love, and save to himself the leaf.
To own is often to lose the prize:
We stumble along with blinded eyes,
And wake to losses and bitter grief.

SUNSET AT ABO, FINLAND. QUAINT city on the Finnish sea,

Old when America was new; How restful are thy rocks to me;

Thy quiet streets, this ocean view.

The great red sun gilds tree and dome, And kingly prison, cold and gray, And lingers on the churchly home

Where lovely Catharine came to lay

HER CREED.

SHE stood before a chosen few,
With modest air, and eyes of blue;
A gentle creature, in whose face
Were mingled tenderness and grace.

"You wish to join our fold," they said; "Do you believe in all that's read From ritual and written creed, Essential to our human need?"

A troubled look was in her eyes;
She answered, as in vague surprise,
As though the sense to her were dim;
"I only strive to follow Him."

They knew her life; how, oft she stood,
Sweet in her guileless maidenhood,
By dying bed, in hovel lone,
Whose sorrow she had made her own.

Oft had her voice in prayer been heard,
Sweet as the voice of singing bird;
Her hand been open in distress;
Her joy to brighten and to bless.

Yet still she answered, when they sought
To know her inmost earnest thought,
With look as of the seraphim,
"I only strive to follow Him."