NOT ALWAYS THUS.

NOT always thus! Not always thus,
Shall we in blindness grope our way;
Not always gaze with longing eyes,
To catch a gleam of perfect day;
Not always stand with folded palms,

Beside the graves, where buried lie The hopes that budded in our hearts, The hopes that blossomed but to die.

Not always thus! Not always thus, Shall we plod on with weary feet; Not always clasp the mocking cup

That mingles bitter with its sweet; Not always strive to catch the gleams Of golden light that round us play, Finding our efforts all in vain,

Our sunlight turn to shadows gray.

Not always thus! Not always thus,
Shall we with longing watch the skies;
Not always dream of glories hid

Beyond the reach of mortal eyes;
Not always listen for the sound
Of angel voices calling us;
Not always stand outside the GATE
And sigh, "Not thus! Not always thus!"

LIFE'S TREASURES.

MORNING.

How beautiful this earth, my love,
How beautiful this earth!
Her mother, Nature, smiled on her
And blessed her, at her birth.

How short a time 'tis our, my love,
How short a time 'tis ours!
Let's gather treasures, while we may,
From life's delightful flowers.

EVENING.

Beneath the azure sky, my love,
Beneath the azure sky,

Along the path that we have trod,
The scattered roses lie.

We've gathered up the leaves, my love,

We've gathered up the leaves! O'er all that's left of what we loved The broken spirit grieves.

M

MARTHA WINTERMUTE.

ARTHA VANDERMARK WINTERMUTE is descended from a patriotic and soldier ancestry. Her grandfather, Benjamin Hitchcock, entered the Revolutionary army at the age of seventeen years, and served to the close of the war. He was the father of Samuel Hitchcock, the philanthropist, and of the late Benjamin Hitchcock, an author, and for many years editor of the New Haven Palladium. His oldest daughter became the wife of a son of Elbridge Gerry. Another daughter was the mother of Orvil Hitchcock Platt, one of the present United States senators from Connecticut. Roswell Dwight Hitchcock, theologian, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, soldier and author, and Edward Hitchcock, the geologist, were of the same ancestry. Mrs. Wintermute's father was a descendant of the Symmesses, of Holland, who, at an early period settled upon the Island of Barbadoes, and acquired title to a large portion of it. They were at one time residents of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Wintermute wrote verses at the age of ten. At the age of sixteen she wrote a poem entitled "The Song of Delaware," which she brought before the public by reading it on her graduation from the Ohio Wesleyan University, in Delaware, Ohio. That poem was soon followed by others, which were received with favor by the public. She was married at the age of nineteen, to Dr. Alfred Wintermute, of Newark, Ohio, and for a number of years thereafter she did not offer any poetry to the public. In 1888 she began the revision and publication of her poetry. In 1890 she brought. out a prose story in the interest of temperance, closing the volume with about one-hundred pages of her poetry, revised and corrected. Since the publication of that volume, she has published in the newspaper press a number of miscellaneous. poems consisting of Easter Anthems, Decoration. Day Poems, verses read before pioneer societies, and some on moral and religious topics.

J. C. McC.

THE PARDON OF PSYCHE. APOLLO plays on his lyre of gold, The Arcadian god on his reeds, The muses chant in chorus grand,

And the beauty of Psyche pleads.

The hours shed roses adown the sky
And the halls of heaven perfume,
Jupiter casteth to her a crown,

And the south wind sends its bloom.

Zephyr bedewed the flowers with tears,
And Cupid forgave his bride,
All, all save Venus, the mother-in-law,
And she her mercy denied.

Then Psyche, poor Psyche, stripped of her all,
Besought not of Venus, proud,

But seeking Somnus, she closed her eyes,
Wrapping herself in a shroud,

To sleep in death--and in beautiful dream,
In helpless dream of her sleep,
She saw fair Venus above her gleam,
Then stoop and caress and weep.

Yet she hasted not, but pale in her grief,
She breathed not from her heart,

But her eyes, as dead, thro' their fringed lids,
Let the crystal tear drops start.

Then Venus in pity took Psyche up

And bore her to Cupid's breast;

While the stars fell down and covered her wings, And the angels her feet caressed.

POESY.

Within its border land I long did wait
With sight and sound my spirit all elate.
Around me rained the sunshine, and away,
Stretched vistas, and eternal nights of day,
And spirits came to blend their love with mine.
I felt no form-saw no material sign,

But kisses such as earth has never known
From heavenly hearts, into my heart were sown;
And in the perfect bliss, the flood of day,
Their call to me was, "Come! O, come away!"

ANNIE O'NEIL.

PART I.

IN a sunny nook of a sunny room,

Annie was busy with wheel and with loom;
Her flax, soft, silken, and silk flaxen hair,
Bent close to the flyers, in beauty rare;
The twirling wheel, and the spool in its turn,
Whirl gaily together; the sunbeams burn,
And the heart-beams burn, in mingled light,
On the azure slopes of her spirit bright.
The flax breaks not in her fingers white,
That now and then in the gourd dip light,
All pink with beauty; the subtle thread
Trips lightly their tips in a joyous tread.

I gazed from the window, one morning in May;
The dewy deep clover, waved green and gay,
But a wintry breath from the clear north sky,
Caused the bursting buds to shiver and sigh;
The apple bough, and the peach-bloom bright,
Whispered of frost in the still midnight.
But Annie had fire, and hope, and will,
And her thread spun on, to the hum of the mill,
Whose dusty great wheels went round and round,
While Henry, the miller, stood and ground.

Annie sang as she spun:

'Beautiful, flashing beams, Of my father's mill! Beautiful water that gleams,

And turns the wheel.
Beautiful dust of snow,

That floweth still,
Beautiful springs that flow,

And turn the mill!"

The miller was lithe, and gay, and young,
As the grain he ground, this song he sung,

As the great, dusty wheels went round and round,
This song, as the grain he ground;

As out of the dusty door he did look,
Over the mill race and turbid brook,

It was midsummer, the flax in bloom,
Stood eyes wide open towards Anna's loom;
He saw in acres the broad square field;
As the miller thought of its promised yield.
This was the song he sung:

"O! beautiful wheel the flax to spin;
O! beautiful home; so cozy within,
Where Annie sits at her loom
And beautiful fields of flax in bloom,

And waving corn and wheat for the mill,
And I a blissful groom

May work or play at my will.”

But never of beautiful Annie O'Neil,

Who sweetly worked at the spinning wheel;
Never of love sang he that day,

The miller so young, and lithe, and gay.

But Annie held in her heart untold,
Her secret, wrapped in its virgin fold,
As pure and white, and cold as the snow,
That drifted and chained, the brooklets flow,
And silenced the hum of the mill;

And the wintry winds of heaven did blow,
From its barren hill,

And they sent through the veins of harvest a chill,
And the tender corn, and the jointed wheat,
And the flax fields, whispered of frost and sleet,
And the song of the miller was still.

WIDOWED IN JULY.

MONTH of the season's garnered gold, Verdure and bloom and myriad charms, Behold thy gleaming days unfold,

My lost beloved-a shrouded form. O, sad! O, unforgiven month!

Thou standest marked amidst my years, Forward or backward though I look,

I view thee through a mist of tears.
Thy perfumed palaces of light,

Thy orchestras of music rare,
That bring sweet solace to the sight,
And cadence to the trembling air,
They seem as seems the carol sweet,
They seem as seems the sunlight gay,
Of happy hearts, to one bereft

Of love, that robs the soul of day.

GRIEF OF HERCULES.

Hylas, Hylas, where art thou!
From my ship I saw thee go
Gayly o'er the waters bright,
And I waited till the low,
Lone, red sun sank out of sight.

Hylas, Hylas, where art thou! Answereth but the sea's low moan, But the wild wind sad and lone.

I am wandering on the strand,
I am standing by the well,
Where I found thy silver cup
And thy footprints in the sand:
All the gleaming stars are up,
I shall never see thee more:
Never, oh, I pray thee tell.
I have loved thee, Hylas, well.

Is there light in any land,

Is there joy in any spot,
Where thy tender smile is not?
Where no more I clasp thy hand?
Is there life in any gale?

Breath to waft my bark's lone sail? Hylas, Hylas, hear my wail!

FAITH.

GIVE me the rest of faith,

Give me the faith to rest, My life forever on Thy word, My heart upon thy breast.

M

MARY H. GRAY CLARKE.

ARY H. GRAY CLARKE was born in Bristol, R. I., March 28, 1835 and was the daughter of Gideon and Hannah Orne Metcalf Gray. She was a great-granddaughter of Colonel Thomas Gray of Bristol, R. I., an officer illustrious in the war of the Revolution, and was a direct descendant of John Gray, an English gentleman, and of his son, Edward Gray, who, born in 1623 in Stapleford Tawney, Essex County, England, emmigrated in 1643 to Plymouth, Mass., and became the richest merchant of the colony. Mrs. Clarke, after attending the public schools of her native town, became a pupil in Miss Easterbrook's school, in Bristol, for young ladies. She subsequently studied in East Greenwich Academy, Rhode Island, and afterward went to Boston, where she devoted herself to the study of fine art, including painting, poetry and music. She was married, October 23, 1861, to Dr. Augustus P. Clarke, who was surgeon of the war of 1861-5, and who has since acquired a national reputation as a writer on subjects pertaining to Obstetrics and Gynecology.

At an early age Mrs. Clarke displayed a marked genius in the production of story and of verse. She wrote extensively for magazines and for the public press. She was also the author of many dramas, lyric poems and operettas. She assumed different pen-names but was known as an author under the name of "Nina Gray Clarke." Some of her works are "Effie, Fairy Queen of Dolls," for which she received a prize; "Prince Puss in Boots;" "Golden Hair and her Knight of the Beanstalk in the Enchanted Forest;" 'Obed Owler and the Prize Writers;" "How I Came to Leave Town and What Came of it;""Edith Morton, the Sensible Young Lady." Mrs. Clarke had the gift of song. She painted many pictures, some in water-colors, and some in oils. Several of her paintings have commanded much attention from connoisseurs of art. Mrs. Clarke was endowed by nature with many gifts; she had a large and active brain, and her health for the greater part of her life continued unimpaired. She traveled extensively, and accompanied her family in an extended tour through the British Isles and also through central and southern Europe, visiting all the great capitals of those countries, for observation, study and for improvement generally. By her marriage she had two daughters, Inez Louise and Genevieve Clarke, who have pursued cellegiate studies at the Harvard Annex. She resided in Cambridge, Mass., near the New City Hall overlooking the Charles River Valley. She died May 30, 1892. C. C.