"There is no poet in America who has written more lovingly or discriminatingly about nature in her ever varying aspects. We are sure that in his loyal allegiance to her, he is not a whit behind Wordsworth, and we do not hesitate to say that he has often a grace that the old Lake-poet lacks."-Mrs. Preston.

"Hayne has the lyric gift, and his shorter poems have a ring and richness that recall the glories of the Elizabethan period; each shows the same careful and

artistic workmanship."-Collier.

THE MOCKING-BIRD.

(At Night.)

(From Poems, 1882.*)

A golden pallor of voluptuous light
Filled the warm southern night;

The moon,

clear orbed, above the sylvan scene
Moved like a stately Queen,

So rife with conscious beauty all the while,
What could she do but smile

At her own perfect loveliness below,
Glassed in the tranquil flow

Of crystal fountains and unruffled streams?

Half lost in waking dreams,

As down the loneliest forest dell I strayed,

Lo! from a neighboring glade,

Flashed through the drifts of moonshine, swiftly came
A fairy shape of flame.

It rose in dazzling spirals overhead,

Whence, to wild sweetness wed,

Poured marvellous melodies, silvery trill on trill;

The very leaves grew still

On the charmed trees to hearken; while, for me,

Heart-thrilled to ecstasy,

I followed-followed the bright shape that flew,
Still circling up the blue,

*By permission of the Lothrop Publishing Co., Boston; as also the others following.

Till, as a fountain that has reached its height
Falls back in sprays of light

Slowly dissolved, so that enrapturing lay,

Divinely melts away

Through tremulous spaces to a music-mist,

Soon by the fitful breeze

How gently kissed

Into remote and tender silences.

SONNET.-OCTOBER.

The passionate summer's dead! the sky's aglow
With roseate flushes of matured desire,
The winds at eve are musical and low,

As sweeping chords of a lamenting lyre,
Far up among the pillared clouds of fire,
Whose pomp of strange procession upward rolls,
With gorgeous blazonry of pictured scrolls,
To celebrate the summer's past renown;
Ah, me! how regally the heavens look down,
O'ershadowing beautiful autumnal woods
And harvest fields with hoarded increase brown,
And deep-toned majesty of golden floods,
That raise their solemn dirges to the sky,
To swell the purple pomp that floateth by.

A DREAM OF THE SOUTH WIND.

O fresh, how fresh and fair

Through the crystal gulfs of air,

The fairy South Wind floateth on her subtle wings of balm!
And the green earth lapped in bliss,

To the magic of her kiss

Seems yearning upward fondly through the golden-crested calm.

From the distant Tropic strand

Where the billows, bright and bland,

Go creeping, curling round the palms with sweet, faint undertune; From its fields of purpling flowers

Still wet with fragrant showers,

The happy South Wind lingering sweeps the royal blooms of June.

All heavenly fancies rise

On the perfume of her sighs,

Which steep the inmost spirit in a languor rare and fine,
And a peace more pure than sleep's

Unto dim half-conscious deeps,

Transports me, lulled and dreaming, on its twilight tides divine.
Those dreams! ah, me! the splendor,

So mystical and tender,

Wherewith like soft heat lightnings they gird their meaning round, And those waters, calling, calling,

With a nameless charm enthralling,

Like the ghost of music melting on a rainbow spray of sound!

Touch, touch me not, nor wake me,

Lest grosser thoughts o'ertake me;

From earth receding faintly with her dreary din and jars—
What viewless arms caress me?

What whispered voices bless me,

With welcomes dropping dew-like from the weird and wondrous stars?

Alas! dim, dim, and dimmer

Grows the preternatural glimmer

Of that trance the South Wind brought me on her subtle wings of

balm,

For behold! its spirit flieth,

And its fairy murmur dieth,

And the silence closing round me is a dull and soulless calm!

JOHN ESTEN COOKE.

1830-1886.

JOHN ESTEN COOKE was born at Winchester, Virginia, a younger brother of Philip Pendleton Cooke and son of the eminent jurist, John Rogers Cooke, under whom he made his law studies. He seemed, however, to prefer literature to law, and when he was twenty-four he had already pub

lished several works. Among them was "Virginia Comedians," a novel of great interest and greater promise.

In 1861 he entered the Confederate service as one of General T. J. Jackson's staff, was transferred to that of General J. E. B. Stuart at the death of Jackson in 1863; and after Stuart's death, he was Inspector-General of the horse artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia till the close of the war.

His novels deal with the life and history of Virginia, the best known of them being "Surry of Eagle's Nest," which is said to be partly autobiographical. They hold well the popular favor. His "Stories of the Old Dominion" are specially interesting to Virginians.

That word always produces a strong effect upon men in the South; and when the day fixed upon for the Jamestown races comes, the country is alive for miles around with persons of all classes and descriptions.

*By permission of D. Appleton and Co., New York.