And more briery, too, you fancy! UNHINDERED. FAR westward is a snow-bound train; Eastward, a soul is saying, "Though I have looked so long in vain This is not love's delaying; For I have such a certain sense The letter, from its barriers free, Hastes to the love that waited. Lo! its first words: "So close are we, That, if by snow belated, This message you are sure to feel The day before you break the seal." O ye, that never dwell apart, Though half a globe may sever, Thus will it be, when heart to heart Can show no sign forever! Though death-snows loom like Himalay, Yet soul to soul, unbarred, will fly. JUNE SONG FOR THE OLD. THE June is sweet with rose and song, HOW LIFE'S DARK IS LIGHTED. THE day was black with clouds and care, No touch of brightness anywhere; God seemed a myth, and life a thing To which fear only made me cling. I looked within, I looked without, But nothing saw to light my doubt. "Oh, for the comfort of that friend, Now at the earth's remotest end! In such a frame, just he alone Could, with his strength, my spirit tone, Or, through his kindred feeling, give A solace to this life I live." Thus ran my thought, but like the wind True life, what is it but the thrust The soul's brave motion; on, right on, The wind-like Power that swept me through To rise from out that dark of doom So high the sense, that come what might, UNSAID. FOR days and weeks upon the lip has hung The heart repeats it over day by day, And fancies how and when the words will fall; What answering smile upon the face will play, What tender light will linger over all. But eager eyes that watch for one alone May grow reluctant; for the open gate Or when the presence waited for has come, Perhaps the time of meeting, or the form, What blends with twilight, jars with noon of day. Again, when all things seem our wish to serve, And often ere our friend is out of sight, We start; the thing can scarce be credited,We have been silent, or our words been trite, And here's the dearest thing of all unsaid! IN MARCH. WHILE icy winds so pierce me to the core, One thought can keep me sunny as the south; That spring is not behind, but just before The one soft rapture missed at June's red mouth. Full as she is in every other bliss, Her heaven of roses shuts the spring away. Large my content, on such a day as this, That Ripeness is not looking toward Decay, But Desolution looking forth to Life. Oh! that my soul esteemed her seasons so; Prizing sweet passions less than final strife, With its one hope of all beyond the snow! INTIMATIONS OF GENIUS. A HAWTHORN bough in full and snowy bloom; KATE MCPHELIM CLEARY. KATE MCPHELIM was put 20th, 1963. ter Kent county, N. B., August 20th, 1863. Her parents, James and Margaret McPhelim, were of Irish birth, the former with his brothers being distinguished for intellectual ability and business talents. They were extensively engaged in the timber business, and in 1856 her uncle, the Hon. Francis McPhelim was Postmaster-General of New Brunswick, and her father held the office of high sheriff of the county. Her father's death, in 1865, left his widow with three small children and not very ample means, which she devoted to their education. In later years she was well repaid by the success that attended their literary efforts. Kate was educated at the Sacred Heart Convent, St. John, N. B., and later attended other convent schools in this country and in the old. Her pen which had been a source of diversion and delight to her since she was a little girl, became, when necessity required, an easy means of support. Her first published poem appeared when she was fourteen years old, and from that time to the present she has written almost continuously poetry and fiction. On February 26th, 1884, she was married to Michael T. Cleary, a young lumber merchant of Hubbell, Neb. Mr. and Mrs. Cleary have kept a hospitable home, welcoming as guests many distinguished men and women. Mrs. Cleary's stories are largely those of adventure and incident, and are published in newspapers quite as much as magazines. Her verses are delicate and often humorous and they are, above all, musical. Frank, unaffected and vivacious, Mrs. Cleary is a woman who would be noted anywhere for kindness of heart and clear cleverness of perception. She is a woman of thorough adaptability and is equally happy in society or solitude. She has three little children, whom she personally cares for. As a housewife she is more than thorough; she is original and experimental. Her face is comely, her height is medium, and her manners are cordial and simple. C. W. M. THE CORN. WHEN the merry April morn Were a million legions born; And when in May-time days, Crept to proffer perfect praise. And when the June-time heat That kept growing all the while, To the sounds serene and sweet. When the fierce sun of July And in the creeks the water bright Racked the corn with cruel drouth, But the nights benign and blue Now the sweet September's here, DRIFTING DOWN. GONE the ripple and the rushes Of the love-songs of the thrushes, Gone the roses in the closes of the garden, and the blushes Of the shy verbena creeping By the old south wall, and steeping All its sweetness in the sunshine of the sleepy summer hushes. And ever o'er it all, in a gold and crimson pall, Over mignonette grown tawny, and o'er grass a bronzing brown, With a rustle and a whir, and a sad and solemn stir, The leaves are drifting down, dear, oh, the leaves are drifting down. Come the mornings gray and chilly, Comes an airy midnight fairy, tracing fern, and rose, and lily, On the window-panes that glisten, While in dreams the children listen To the swing of skates that ring, and shouts that echo shrilly, And ever, ever still, in the hollow, on the hill, By the roadside, where the sun-flower lifts aloft a ruined crown, Like the dear old dreams of youth, dreams of honor, fame and truth, Forever falling from us-do the leaves keep drifting down. Let the summer set in splendor, Bridelike beauty, bridelike duty, every charm divine and tender, To the conquering king, who loudly Tells the story of his captive, and her passionate surrender. And with the leaves that fall, in a rich and royal pall, O'er the rose-heart's crumbled crimson, and the grass grown dull and brown, Let the bitterness, the strife, all the little ills of life, Go drifting, drifting down, dear-with the leaves go drifting down! BEFORE THE BAL MASQUE. AND SO you have found an old programme. In its silken sheath it has lain there hid, Let us look! A galop with George Bellair. A decorous deacon, and leads at prayer, And, just to look at him, one would swear To dance he never knew how. |