In the way of flounced silks, and, thus left in the lurch, Are unable to go to ball, concert, or church. Total want, long continued, of camels'-hair shawls; To survive for the want of a new Russian sable; Or borne it, at least, with serene resignation), Ever sent out from Paris, worth thousands of dollars, And all as to style most recherché and rare, And renders her life so drear and dyspeptic Who resist the most touching appeals made for diamonds By their wives and their daughters, and leave them for days Unsupplied with new jewelry, fans or bouquets, Even laugh at their miseries whenever they have a chance, And deride their demands as useless extravagance; ron. The consequence was, that when she got there, At the end of three weeks she had nothing to wear, And when she proposed to finish the season But why harrow the feelings by lifting the curtain To rush and relieve these sad cases instanter. Won't somebody, moved by this touching description, Come forward to-morrow and head a subscription? The Laying-out Hospital well might be named ? Or, to furnish the cash to supply these distresses, And life's pathway strew with shawls, collars, and dresses, Ere the want of them makes it much rougher and thornier, Won't some one discover a new California? O ladies, dear ladies, the next sunny day Have hunted their victims to gloom and despair; Raise the rich, dainty dress, and the fine broidered skirt, Pick your delicate way through the dampness and dirt, [stair Grope through the dark dens, climb the rickety To the garret, where wretches, the young and the old, [cold. Half-starved and half-naked, lie crouched from the WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER.-RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. See those skeleton limbs, those frost-bitten feet, All bleeding and bruised by the stones of the street; Then home to your wardrobes, and say, if you dare, Spoiled children of fashion, you've nothing to wear! And oh, if perchance there should be a sphere Must be clothed for the life and the service above Richard Henry Stoddard. AMERICAN. Stoddard, born in Hingham, Mass., in 1825, removed when quite young to New York. He engaged early in literary pursuits; published a volume of poems in 1842; another in 1849; "Songs of Summer," in 1856; "The King's Bell," in 1863; "The Book of the East," in 1871; "Later Poems" (1871-1880). In the last-named year an elegant edition of his collected poems, with a fine portrait, was published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Stoddard has done much literary work for publishers as author, editor, and compiler. For some time he held a place in the Custom-house. His wife (Elizabeth Drew Barstow, born 1823), a native of Mattapoisett, Mass., has also achieved success in authorship, having produced several novels and contributed largely to magazines. One of her poems is subjoined. In his short lyrical pieces Stoddard exhibits much of the grace, tenderness, and delicacy of expression that charm us in Herrick, Tennyson, and the German Heine. He is one of the born poets, having manifested when a child extreme sensitiveness to the influences of external nature and to all that is beautiful in art. A series of short poems on the death of his little boy are remarkable for the deep and true pathos they embody. SONGS UNSUNG. Let no poet, great or small, Not because we woo it long, But because it suits its will, Tired at last of being still. Every song that has been sung Was before it took a voice; Waiting since the world was young For the poet of its choice. Oh, if any waiting be, May they come to-day to me! I am ready to repeat Sorrows sent by them are sweet- What are my white hairs, forsooth, I have still the soul of youth- I can still with numbers fleet No, I am no longer young; Old am I this many a year; But my songs will yet be sung, Though I shall not live to hear. Oh, my son, that is to be, Sing my songs, and think of me! 203 FROM THE PROEM TO COLLECTED POEMS. These songs of mine, the best that I have sung, I grant, beforehand, all the faults they have, HOW ARE SONGS BEGOT AND BRED ? How are songs begot and bred ? How do golden measures flow? From the heart, or from the head? Happy Poet! let me know. Tell me first how folded flowers None may answer, none may know; Winds and flowers come and go, And the self-same canons bind Nature and the Poet's mind. THE COUNTRY LIFE. Not what we would, but what we must, Heaven is both more and less than just In taking and in giving. Swords cleave to hands that sought the plough, And laurels miss the soldier's brow. Me, whom the city holds, whose feet And there, I hope, my grave will be. Old homestead! In that old, gray town, Dearer that little country house, Dear country home! Can I forget Whose bloom the bee still rifles? Happy the man who tills his field, Content with rustic labor; Earth does to him her fulness yield, Hap what may to his neighbor. Well days, sound nights, oh, can there be A life more rational and free? Dear country life of child and man! For both the best, the strongest, That with the earliest race began, And hast outlived the longest: Their cities perished long ago; Who the first farmers were we know. Perhaps our Babels too will fall; If so, no lamentations, For Mother Earth will shelter all, And feed the unborn nations; Yes, and the swords that menace now Will then be beaten to the plough. ON THE CAMPAGNA. MRS. R. H. STODDARD. Stop on the Appian Way, In the Roman Campagna,— Stop at my tomb, The tomb of Cecilia Metella! When he, with his pale-visaged Goths, Beneath these battlements My bones were stirred with Roman pride, When Rome commanded the earth I was Metellus' wife; I loved him, and I died. Then with slow patience built he this memorial: Each century marks his love. Pass by on the Appian Way The tomb of Cecilia Metella. Wild shepherds alone seek its shelter, Deep in its desolation, Deep as the shadow of Rome! THOMAS D'ARCY MCGEE.-ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER. Thomas D'Arcy McGee. McGee (born in 1825) was a native of Carlingford, County Louth, Ireland; the son of a member of the Coast Guard Service. In 1842 Thomas emigrated to America, and was connected for awhile with The Pilot. He returned to Ireland to be associated, first with the Dublin Freeman's Journal, and then with The Nation. In 1848 he returned to America, and started the New York Nation; it was not a success, and he commenced The American Celt in Boston. Selling out his interest in that paper, he accepted an invitation to remove to Montreal, where he was elected to the Canadian Parliament. Here he opposed the Fenian movement, and, incurring the hatred of the most radical of his countrymen, was assassinated April 7th, 1868. His poems are unequal in merit, many of them showing a great lack of artistic care. A collection of them was published in New York in 1869. 805 Welcome, sword! thou magic wand, Welcome, sword! no more with love Will Cathal look on land or main, Till with thine aid, my sword! I prove Shining sickle! lie thou there; Back to the fields of my own land. CATHAL'S FAREWELL TO THE RYE. Cathal Crov-derg (the red-handed) O'Connor, being banished from Connaught, was found reaping rye in a field in Leinster, when news was brought that called him to assert his rights. Cathal threw down the sickle, saying, "Farewell, sickle; now for the sword!" The saying grew to be proverbial in Ireland. Shining sickle! lie thou there; Another harvest needs my hand, Another sickle I must bear Back to the fields of my own land. Farewell, sickle! welcome, sword! A crop waves red on Connaught's plain, Peaceful sickle! lie thou there, Deep buried in the vanquished rye; May this that in thy stead I bear, Above as thick a reaping lie! Farewell, sickle! welcome, sword! Welcome, sword! out from your sheath, And look upon the glowing sun! Sharp shearer of the field of death, Your time of rust and rest is done. Welcome, welcome, trusty sword! Welcome, sword! no more repose For Cathal-Crov-derg or for thee, Until we walk o'er Erin's foes, Or they walk over you and me, My lightning, banner-cleaving sword! Adelaide Anne Procter. Miss Procter (1825-1864) was that "golden- tressed Adelaide," of whom her father, while writing under the pseudonyme of Barry Cornwall, used to sing. N. P. Willis described her while a child as "a beautiful girl of eight or nine years, delicate, gentle, and pensive, as if she was born on the lip of Castaly, and knew she was a poet's daughter." In 1858 she published "Legends and Lyrics," a book of verse. Many of her earliest poems appeared in Charles Dickens's weekly magazine, Household Words. They breathe an earnest religious sentiment, and have a character of their own which distinguishes them from all mere imitations. Miss Procter became a Roman Catholic in the latter part of her short life. An American edition of her poems has met with a good sale. One of her critics says: "It is full of a thoughtful scriousness, a grave tenderness, a fancy temperate but not frigid, with touches of the true artist." MINISTERING ANGELS. Angels of light, spread your bright wings and keep From all dark spirits of unholy power From all foreboding thoughts and dangerous fears Keep me secure; Teach me to hope, and through the bitterest tears Still to endure. If lonely in the road so fair and wide My feet should stray, Then through a rougher, safer pathway guide Me day by day. Should my heart faint at its unequal strife, Oh, still be near Shadow the perilous sweetness of this life With holy fear. Then leave me not alone in this bleak world, And at the end, with your bright wings unfurled, THE LOST CHORD. Seated one day at the organ, I know not what I was playing, Like the sound of a great Amen! It flooded the crimson twilight, It quieted pain and sorrow, Like love overcoming strife; It seemed the harmonious echo From our discordant life. It linked all perplexéd meanings I have sought, but I seek it vainly, That came from the soul of the organ, It may be that Death's bright angel It may be that only in heaven STRIVE, WAIT, AND PRAY. Strive; yet I do not promise, The prize you dream of to-day, Will not fade when you think to grasp it, And melt in your hand away; But another and holier treasure, You would now perchance disdain, Will come when your toil is over, And pay you for all your pain. Wait; yet I do not tell you, The hour you long for now, Will not come with its radiance vanished, Pray; though the gift you ask for May never comfort your fears, May never repay your pleading, Yet pray, and with hopeful tears; An answer, not that you long for, But diviner, will come one day; Your eyes are too dim to see it, Yet strive, and wait, and pray. Bayard Taylor. AMERICAN. James Bayard Taylor, as he was christened (1825-1878), was a native of Kennet Square, Chester County, Pa. His active career began with an apprenticeship in a printingoffice of his native place. When nineteen years old he set out for Europe, and travelled afoot for two years. His first book, Views Afoot," had a profitable sale. He subsequently travelled in California, Central Africa, India, China, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Lapland, Greece, and Russia, and embodied his experiences in many books of travel. He was connected editorially with the New York Tribune. He published three novels, made a brilliant translation of Goethe's "Faust," and was the author of several volumes of poems, containing some lyrics of a high order. Married to a German lady, he became an accomplished German scholar, and undertook a life of Goethe, for preparing which his opportunities were ample. Under the Presidency of Mr. Hayes he was made Minister to Berlin in 1878, but died in that city in the flush of his schemes of literary labor and of diplomatic culture. He was a man greatly beloved by numerous friends, and has left a literary record that is likely to make his name long familiar. A complete edition of his poems appeared in Boston in 1880. |