And tell her story. With unstudied art
Love shall reveal the pulsings of the heart,
And hope shall make the shades of night depart.

Help, thou, to form the visions I essay,

The shade and light, the hollow, gleaming day,
And the dark night from which stars pass away.

Bright guardian, Memory! make the vanished clear;

Whisper sweet recollections in my ear;
Walk thou beside me till my change appear.

IPHIGENIA.

LIKE to a stately palm that lifts its head
On some lone isle, its leaves a coronal
Of verdant beauty, so with stately tread
The queenly maid appeared among them all;
Beauteous as any rose before the fall

Of the first petal; lips, whose rounded swell
And honeyed taste would sweeten bitter gall,
And bid an anchorite forsake his cell.

And eyes where Venus' son continual seemed to dwell.

An arm Medicean Venus might have dared To look upon with envy; marble breasts,

Whose sea-shell-tinted pink, just half unbared, Revealed the glory of their tiny crests;

A stately neck, whose sculptured beauty rests Upon a bust so full and beautiful,

Their fair perfections with such charms invests The radiant maid, that each knight, dutiful,

Drank in her charms and sated, sighed, by beauty full.

Thus in the glory of her youth she stood;

I run through nature for a simile;
Fair as the earth when God declared it good;
Dear as the bud to bloom-as sweet to bee-
As spring to earth—as sunshine to the tree—
As rain to desert-as the gentle calm

To men whose barks are shipwrecked on the sea-
As breezes to the fainting, breathing balm,
She stole into all hearts like a perpetual psalm.
A rosebud opening to the dewy morn;

A white swan pluming gracefully for flight;
A lily on a silent river born,

A nightingale descanting through the night

When the full moon wakes all the Heavens with light;

So seemed she flushed with youth-the rose in glow

The swan in grace-as lily pure and whiteAs peaceful as the river in its flow

And joyous as the nightingale when day is low.

PHEBE

PHEBE A. HOLDER.

HEBE A. HOLDER was born in Berlin, Mass., November 27th, 1824. A child of nature she early listened to her teachings, holding 'communion with her visible forms," catching inspiration from the woods, flowers, birds, the ocean and mountains, listening to the myriad voices of the universe. One gift in particular she possesses which makes her society the delight of others, and which is a source of exquisite enjoyment to herself. It is her love for choice books, and the power of imparting their beauty and meaning to others.

Her home is in a quiet nook "amid the windings of a woody vale," often sought by choice friends. The beloved books, from the best authors are in lavish profusion, on tables, in the cases, all about, close at hand.

A graduate of the Westfield Normal School, she represents its choicest product. Her life work has been teaching, with great love for it. Much of her work in the school room has been done in western Massachusetts, in beautiful Berkshire the home of her heart. She taught in the High Schools of Lee and Hinsdale. She has written much for papers, magazines and special occasions. Dr. Vincent's grand Chautauqua idea has no more devoted lover or consistent follower, and most truly may it be said of her,

"Only a sweet and virtuous soul, like seasoned timber, never gives." H. H.

AN HOUR WITH WHITTIER.

POET believed, again I come

On thy sweet verse to ponder, And linger o'er thy soulful words, The while my heart grows fonder. "Among the Hills" I walk with thee, Reading the dear home story, When Autumn comes with Golden Rod "Heavy with Sunshine” glory, Within the "Tent Upon the Beach"

I sit with joy to listen

To lords of thought, while peaceful waves In molten gold-light glisten.

I see the "School House by the Wall,"
The eager children leaving,

The little girl who "Spelt the Word,"
The tender face of grieving-
The "Hazel Blossoms " gleam with gold
In fresher beauty glowing,
Touched by the Poet's loving hand,
Woven in verses flowing.

FANNY H. R. POOLE.

'ANNY HUNTINGTON RUNNELLS, a des

Fendy of the early Connecticut Huntingtons,

was born about twenty-seven years ago in the town of Orford, New Hampshire. Her father, Rev. M. T. Runnells, was twenty-three years pastor of the Congregational Church at Sanborton, a pleasant country village farther south. Clear hill-top scenery, vast mountain vistas were the first symbols of eternity to the mind of the imaginative child. Isolated, to a large degree, from the comradeship of other children, her purest delights, we are told, were to wander in the fields, browse at will in her father's library, or pore over her mother's music books at the piano.' In her long out-of-door rambles amongst the birds and flowers, she found it easy to lisp her love of things beautiful in rhyme. By some happy chance, a copy of Palgrave's "Golden Treasury" was discovered by the little maid, who drank from the fount with the peculiar zest of a young and true child of genius. At ten years of age, she would have confided in you her affection for "Romeo and Juliet, "Rasselas," "Eve of St. Agnes," Wordsworth, Bryant and Tennyson. At thirteen, her verses, heretofore a guarded secret, began appear in the Granite Monthly, Cottage Hearth, Journal of Education, The Advance, Boston Journal, etc. Soon after, we find her in the role of student at the New Hampshire Seminary at Tilton, where her education, superior to most of her age, was greatly improved by two years of careful work. Then followed several years of music study in Boston, of teaching in a New York school, in the Parkesburgh (Pa.) Classical Institute and in Frankfort, Ky.

to

In 1891, Miss Runnells was married to Allan A. P. Poole, a Boston business man, a nephew of the English painter, Paul Poole, R. A. Her home is in Dorchester, Mass.

Mrs. Poole is far from being a "hobbyist," dearly as she loves her art. She can polish a sonnet or write a clever book-review this morning, and after dinner invite you to accompany her on a horse-back ride; or, seated at her piano, she can lose herself in the intricacies of Beethoven or Chopin. She enjoys singing, teaching, the care of little chilbren, the culture of flowers, embroidery and old book and picture collections. But her absorbing passion is poetry. F. L. K.

PURPORT.

O, LITTLE clouds! how swift

Ye sail across the blue,

To let the sunshine thro'.

O, sparkling snowy drift!
You haste in Spring-tide hours,
To leave the fragrant flowers.

O little clouds of life

That o'er us ofttimes stray,
Yet brave the heart alway.

Secure above earth's strife, The trusting end may rest; By heavenly sunshine blest.

MEDITATION.

UPON a mossy bank I lie,

The summer sun is low; The rippling stream that wanders by Reflects the radiance of the sky,

And spreads a heavenly glow.

Ah! skies of dreamy violet.

What amaranthine bloom? What varied jewel deeply set

In hues of Heaven's own coronet, Lightens the nether gloom?

From out the cloud-land of the West There breaks a sudden light;

It touches stream and mountain crest, And Nature's wildest haunts are drest With roses ever bright!

How blest it were to crown our days
With radiance from above!
Along Life's rude and rugged ways,
To scatter warm, effulgent rays,
Of peace and holy love.

A SUNSET THOUGHT.

OH radiance mine when day is o'er!

Oh sunset reach of thought to dwell On ling'ring joys the landscape wore! And calm the introspective view Of what was given me to do, For, if I failed, with purpose true, God knoweth all, and it is well. And be it mine at close of life;

This rapture giv'n, whate'er befell, Of yesterdays unfilled with strife,— This gleam of the Unlived to lend Foreglory. Truth the Godward trend, Were imperfected life's great end, God knoweth all, and it is well.