LUCY HAMILTON HOOPER.—BRET HARTE. For she, whom only you deceived, As she whose heart I've broken." THE KING'S RIDE. Above the city of Berlin Shines soft the summer day, And near the royal palace shout The school-boys at their play. Sudden the mighty palace gates Unclasp their portals wide, And forth into the sunshine see A single horseman ride. A bent old man in plain attire; The boys have spied him, and with shouts The merry urchins haste to greet Impeding e'en his horse's tread, And Prussia's despot frowns his best, The frowning look, the angry tone Are feigned, full well they know; They do not fear his stick-that hand Ne'er struck a coward blow. "Be off to school, you boys!" he cries. "Ho! ho!" the laughers say, "A pretty king you not to know We've holiday to-day!" And so upon that summer day, These children at his side, The symbol of his nation's love, Did royal Frederick ride. O Kings! your thrones are tottering now! When did you ride as rode that day Bret Harte. AMERICAN. 877 Francis Bret Harte, born in Albany, N. Y., in 1837, was the son of a school-master, and partly of Dutch origin. When seventeen years old, he went with his widowed mother to California. Here he opened a school at the mines of Sonora, but, not prospering in it, qualified himself as a setter of types. In San Francisco he got a place on the Golden Era; then engaged in The Californian, which was not a success. In it appeared his "Condensed Novels." He made his first decided hit in the Overland Monthly, in his "Plain Language from Truthful James," a delectable bit of original humor. Returning to the Atlantic States, he published his “Luck of Roaring Camp, and other Tales," in 1869; his "Poems" and "Condensed Novels," in 1870; his "East and West Poems," in 1872. He has since written a novel for Scribner's Magazine, and several articles for the Atlantic Monthly. In 1879 he was appointed to the important Consulate at Glasgow. His various writings have won for him quite a reputation in England and Germany as well as in his own country. Samuel Stillman Conant. AMERICAN. Mr. Conant was born in Waterville, Me., in 1831. After receiving a college education in this country, he spent several years abroad, principally at the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Munich. On his return to this country Mr. Conant became connected with the press of New York, and devoted himself to the profession of a journalist. In 1870 he published a translation of "The Circassian Boy," a metrical romance by the Russian poet Lermontoff. He has contributed frequently to the periodical literature of the day. RELEASE. As one who leaves a prison cell, And looks, with glad though dazzled eye, Once more on wood and field and sky, And feels again the quickening spell Of Nature thrill through every vein, Free from my Past-a jailer dread And with the Present clasping hands, Beneath fair skies, through sunny lands, Which memory's ghosts ne'er haunt, I tread. The pains and griefs of other days May, shadow-like, pursue me yet; But toward the sun my face is set, His golden light on all my ways. A VIGIL. The hands of my watch point to midnight, But my pulse runs like the morning, My darling, my maiden, is nested And wrapped from the chill, And slumber lies down on her eyelids, Pure, light, and still; She needs not the watch-care of angels To keep off fear and ill. The throbbing of her heart is ever A sweet, virgin prayer; The thoughts of her heart, like incense. Fill the chaste and silent air; And how can evil, or fear of it, Enter in there? THE SAUCY ROGUE. FROM THE GERMAN. There is a saucy rogue, well known But, maiden fair, Take care, take care! His dart may wound you, unaware! With bow and arrows in his hand Take care, take care! His dart may wound you, unaware! Her nimble hands the distaff ply; Give heed, take care, Else you may lose her, unaware! Who stands there laughing at the door? That rogue, who triumphs thus once more! Both lad and maiden he has bit, And laughs as though his sides would split. And so he sports him everywhere; Now here, now there; He mocks your care; You fall his victim, unaware. Now who so masterful and brave Lest ill you fare! The rogue may catch you unaware! Henry M. Alden. AMERICAN. HENRY M. ALDEN. Born on Mount Tabor, near Danby, Vt., in 1836. In 1863-64 he delivered an interesting course of lectures at the Lowell Institute, Boston, on "The Structure of Paganism." Mr. Alden has written but few poems, but those few are of a very high order. They evince the possession of thoughtful insight and unusual power of philosophic contemplation. THE ANCIENT "LADY OF SORROW." The worship of the Madonna, or Mater Dolorosa-“Our Lady of Sorrow" is not confined to the Roman Catholic faith; it was an important feature in all the ancient Pagan systems of religion, even the most primitive. In the Sacred Mysteries of Egypt and of Greece her worship was the distinctive and prominent element. In the latter her name was Achtheia, or Sorrow. Under the name of Demeter, by which she was generally known among the Greeks, she, like the Egyptian Isis, typifying the Earth, was represented as sympathizing with the sorrowing children of Earth, both as a bountiful mother, bestowing upon them her fruits and golden harvests, and in her more gloomy aspects-as in autumnal decay, in tempests, and wintry desolation-as sighing over human frailty, and over the wintry deserts of the human heart. The worship connected with this tradition was vague and symbolical, having no well-defined body of doctrine as to sin, salvation, or a future life. Day and Night, Summer and Winter, Birth and Death, as shown in Nature, were seized upon as symbols of vaguely understood truths. Her closing eyelids mock the light; A mystic veil is drawn. She will not see the dawn! The morning leaps across the plain- At eve the shadows come again: In Spring she doth her Winter wait; Before her pass in solemn state What is, or shall be, or hath been, This Lady is; and she hath seen, Like frailest leaves, the tribes of men She taketh on her all our grief; 881 "Childhood and youth are vain," she saith, "Since all things ripen unto death; The flower is blasted by the breath That calls it from the earth. And yet," she saith, "this thing is sureThere is no life but shall endure, And death is only birth. "From death or birth no powers defend, And thus from grade to grade we tend, By resurrections without end, Unto some final peace. But distant is that peace," she saith; Expecting her release. "O Rest," she saith, "that will not come, Not even when our lips are dumb, Thou wear'st a treach'rous mien!" But still she gives the shadow place- Ye must not draw aside her veil; Ye must not see her die! But, hark! from out the stillness rise Low-murmured myths and prophecies, And chants that tremble to the skies-Miserere Domine! They, trembling, lose themselves in rest, Soothing the anguish of her breastMiserere Domine! |