To-day in the sun-land where oranges bloom,
And offer their white waxen buds in perfume;
On the brim of some cool wood-embowered stream,
Where Love often rambles to dream life's sweet

dream.
There sings my old Robin his simple strain-
The mocking birds echo the music again.
Resplendent in plumage the gay paroquets,
And orioles woo thee with sweet luring ways;
The warm eyes of love bewilder and charm,
Till we start from the dream in grief and alarm!
Like murmuring bees in the white lily's cup,
Sip on till the petals forever close up.
When summer is ready to wed the sweet spring,
The glossy magnolias their garlands will bring;
And Jessamine all her sweet censers may swing,
But no bird at the bridal such joy-notes can sing-
Brown Robin, we miss thee; prolong not thy stay;
When rose-trees have blosomed to crown the dear

May.

Blue-crested humming-birds are afloat in the sea

Of red blossoms, as warm as the heart of the rose; Or pink as the sea shell on its coralline bed, Where nymphs of the ocean oft seek sweet re

pose. The crooked old peach trees, so broken and bare

Of green leaves, are mantled in blushes as red As e'er dyed the soft check of the sweet and the

fairA fit emblem of love, when life's hopes all lie dead.

The wonderful calm stealing o'er the green earth,

The gold of the sunlight falling on the wet flowers, When the tempest has gone with its lightning and

hail, Is like meeting with thee in these fragrant pink

bowers.

TO A MEADOW LARK.

SPRING to thy wings bright lark of the meadow!

The gates of the morning stand wide for the day. Fly with thy mates and leave me in shadow,

Thou art a song, but I am shrouded in clay.

SINGING IN THE RAIN.

EASTER MORNING.

Loving little brownie, darling,

Knows thy heart no pain That thou sittest all day singing

Singing in the rain ?
Couldst thon know the pain of waiting

For a step in vain,
Thou wouldst not be gaily singing-

Singing in the rain.
When the sky is full of sumbeams

And the air of song,
Happy moments fly so swiftly

Bearing days along.
So the years will bear us quickly

Where there is no pain;
Where there is no need of singing-

Singing in the rain.

O World in tears, thy Christ lies in the tomb!
O World bereft, His death has sealed thy doom!
We hoped that He had brought immortal Life
To conquer Death and end the mortal strife.
He died! We have no Christ! Our hopes lie dead!

Like him entombed within His nariow bed. 'Risen!" an angel speaks." He's risen from the,

grave! He came to die, and live the world to save. Behold where lay your Lord, and do not fear."

O sing my happy Soul! O glad world hear!
Our Lord has conquered Death! He is thy king.
O glorious Easter morn awake and sing,
Sing loud ye morning stars along the skies,
And haste blest Earth to see thy Sun arise;
Bear ye the news, bright angel band to Heaven,
To man a "resurrection morn” is given.

APPLE BLOSSOMS.

WINTER.

The apple trees are laden with blossoms to-day,

White blossoms as pure as the snow that fell From Heaven, and clothed all the slumbering trees

In robes that would grace the fair angels as well. But come out to the orchard; I cannot describe

Its poetic glory, its sweetness of bloom; You must live in it, lo in it, all the day long; Bathe in its perfume—'twill dissolve all your

Thou hast hushed the deep notes of the songs of

the lakes, And the silvery trill of the brook in the grass. The wild hea the river's deep bosom is stilled By the chill and the frown on thy face as you pass.

-Farewell to Old Winter,

ANDREW MCCABE.

his form. If we had only one cup carved by Benvenuto Cellini, we should know that Cellini had genius. It is not quantity of production that makes a man a poet, and Mr. McCabe rarely as he writes, deserves that title.

J. B. B.

M

PICTURES IN THE SKY.

DEBARRED from fragrant wood and field,
And all the rural scenes that yield
Rest to the weary heart and eye,
I seek earth-pictures in the sky.
When storms portend I look above,
And watch the cloud-ships as they move
Like navies vast, their sails unfurled,
Careering through the upper world.
Swiftly and fair one seems to glide,
From port to port, across the tide,
Unfretted by the unseen force
That drives the rest in broken course.

These, in the darkling sea's unrest,
Now dip, now rise on jagged crest,
Now, bearing each the other's shock,
Are dashed and wrecked on isle and rock.

R: McCABE has written so little verse, some

thirty-five or forty short pieces in all, in half as many years, that one wonders why, having written at all, he has not written more. The fact is he has never seriously thought of making literature a pursuit, but on occasions, sometimes years apart, has simply given way to the impulse of some momentary influence of the Muses inspiration. He is not one of those who “lisped in numbers,” for at the mature age of thirty-seven he had written but one poem, which until that period he had not even put in print. Then, in 1868, a flourishing literary society of Milwaukee having on two different occasions offered prizes for the best poems on subjects of its own choosing, to be competed for anonymously, he contested successfully in both instances. Taking the event altogether it was one that awoke a lively commotion, and a very intense interest, amongst the literary people of that city, and is not yet forgotten.

A success like this would have stimulated most persons to earnest and sustained efforts; but the writer in question was wont to reason that while the great masters of poesy remain but partially read, and while here is an abundance of the best that man's intellect is capable of producing within the easy reach of all readers, it is irrational for minor bards to waste their energies for inferior results, not remembring that the great poets virtually write for poets, or those of rarest insight, while the less pretentious, in the nature of things, furnish the most extended and full enjoyment. Because their work is not in the form of riddles, are not Whittier, and Burns, and “Father Prout” as beneficient as Browning? The analogy will hold good all along the scale. Mr. McCabe may have become aware of the force of this view when he found that his little “Avich Machree,” written to pass away an interval of leisure in the counting room where he spends his days, made the circuit of the English speaking world with the rapidity of steam.

Andrew McCabe was born near the pretty little town of Virginia, in the southeast corner of County of Cavan, Ireland, in June 1831. He came with his family to Philadelphia at the age of ten, attended the public grammar school, thence passing to the Central High School. Went west in 1857, and settled in Milwaukee, Wis., where he continues to reside.

Mr. McCabe's poetry has, above all the quality of spontaneity. If the Greek and Latin classic forms had never existed, Mr. McCable would have written as he writes, so inartificial and natural is

Anon, the dark waves leave the skies:-
Here sleeps a vale, there mountains rise
Peak above peak, in grayish hue,
To their own firmament of blue.

And now the everchanging dome
Doth like a lovely reflex come
Of field, and placid lake, and grove
And all the scenes that poets love.
Where ends the lake a sunny beam
Illumines the margin with its gleam,
And forms beyond a deep cascade,
A rivulet in the broad glade.
Nor all unpeopled now the steep:-
A shepherd grave leads full-fleeced sheep
Across a stripe of glistening sand
And folds them in this fertile land.

So, when Aeolus and the sun
Work in artistic unison,
On vapory canvas stretched on high,
I find earth pictures in the sky.

AVICH MACHREE.

Across a continent and sea, Through fifty years of memory, I hear the words avich machree.

I drink life's wine, and pain and sigh
Have never been; the decades die,
Extinguished in my ecstacy;
And all earth's cares-or worst, or best,
Lie hallowed in a robin's nest!
O ye who measure each and all

The ponderous globes that swing on high,

Chained in attraction heavenly,
Nor miss one throb of mutual thrall,

Canst tell us whence the sweet control
A small-bird's egg sways o'er the soul ?

A wintry night:—the flaming peat

With knots of resinous fir combine
To fill the air with fragrant heat,

To make the bog-oak rafters shine,
And this and love suffice for me;
The love that breathes avich machree.
Some soft white rolls of carded wool;

A spinning wheel set near the hearth;
A mother, seated on a stool,

Drawing the spiral fibres forth To shape the downy-coated thread(God bless the hand laid on my head

A freckled five years I)—and she

Breathes low the words;-avich machree. “My darling son” on English tongue; “ Mon cher fils,” mellow as the sun

In vineyards of the broad Garonne;

Or deeper-toned “Ach lieber sonn!" On Weser's shores, are sweet and strong; But 'mong the slopes of Irish hills

The hearts deep wells appear to be
Diminished into slenderer rills

Invoked by other tongue than thee-
O tongue that breathes avich machree!

III.

ON FINDING A ROBIN'S EGG ON THE

GROUND IN EARLY APRIL.

A moment's thought and rapture flies:-
I see a wing in southern skies,
Far, far away, expectant rise.
It skims the blue, and northern bound,

In alternating rest and flight;

Now frolics mid the violets,
Or mingles with the gladdening sound

Of some sweet brook its sweeter might

Of unctuous whistling; or forgets The stormier hours, in tranquil mood, In some deep mass of solitude. Haste not, haste not, () crimson breast! We've yet no green to roof thy nest; Our northern spring's too timorous beams Still leave along the dells and streams Unconquered lances of the cold; Fails the soft maple to unfold The rich green veil we fain would ask Protective of thy love-bent task. The glistening rings on sapling's bark, The tenderest buds on ash and elm, Give distant pledge of shaded realm Where every trunk looms gray and stark; And here art thou, with cluck and call! Thrice welcome too, thou and thy tune; But what aërial admiral Hath signalled thee to sail so soon ?

I.

An oval form of greenish blue
Shines on the grass, amid the dew,
Beneath the oaks I ramble through.
Or is it dew, or is it frost
That tips the slender greenspear'd host?
And sleeps young April at his post ?
Oh haste and warm the woodland way-
So faint the dream of Summer's day
Last year's red leaves still clutch the spray.
And here, unnested and forlorn-
Oh, love unlit! Oh, song unborn!
Mated with off-cast leaf and thorn,

IV.

A robbin's egg reclines, alas!
Where every vandal foot may pass,
Upon the short, unsheltering grass.
So true of mold, the tiny thing,
A shape so fair could never spring
From daintiest touch of penciling.

How oft, when reasoning failed of truth,
We've said, “The instinct of the beast
And fish, and bird, must be in sooth
Unerring in its kind at least;
They know all seasons and all times
To flee, flit back, build, brood and stay;
They've ears to note unsounded chimes,
Eyes that can read, unerringly,
Books hid from wise humanity-
Birds above all, because their flight
Leads them so nearer heavenly light."
Ah, well! this fragile little shell
But breaks one other cherished spell.

II.

One glance, and all of youthful joy Fills full my heart. Once more a boy