MARION DALANA DANIEL.

What is this life, the gliding life

Of ease and pretty pleasuresWhere men may meet their sober strife With hearts as light, with jestings rife,

As dancers trip their measures ?

Misham
, Georgia

, a little inland city, noted for

A mimic sure, a shining fraud,

Where souls are quenched or hiddenWhere men will stoop and smirk, or laud The vapid farce, and tread the broad

And worldly way forbidden.

Apart from such a life as this

Apart from mimic livingLife's earnest hope and simple bliss Our truer souls more deeply miss

Than all Earth's gaudy giving.

its picturesque scenery, its beautiful homes, its cultured social life and its gifted men and women. Her father, Rev. Francis Marion Daniel, devoted his life to the work of the Christian ministry. Strong in intellect, well informed upon every theme that he discussed, in all his walk and conversation consistent with his high calling, sensitive and responsive to every form of human suffering, wise in his methods and untiring in his efforts to do good, he was admired, honored and loved by all who knew him. He was fortunate in having a wife who appreciated his worth, adopted his ideas, and supported his undertakings. Much that was best and noblest in him is reproduced in his gifted and accomplished daughter. Miss Daniel spent five years in Atlanta, Ga., in the select school of Mrs. Ballard, a successful Southern educator. Her favorite studies were the modern languages and literature, and for these she displayed not only an exceptional fondness but a remarkable aptitude. It was then, and is yet, her ambition to be a writer of verse, a singer of the beauties of earth and sky, of the sighs and sorrows, hopes and fears of human hearts, of the greatness and goodness of God, and of that "blest abode,” invisible to mortal ken, where the rainbow never fades and the flowers never wither, and music, love and gladness are eternal. Among the earliest of her published productions are “A Dream of Life,” and “Treading the Wine Press,” two little poems of merit. In God's school of affliction she has been disciplined into an exquisite sensibility to spiritual truth and beauty. She sings of the great world lying about us, to which the average mortal is utterly blind.

J. B. H.

Of all the ways and forms of life,

So varied and beguiling, O, let me live—not free from strife, Where skies are clear, with no clouds rife,

And lucid pleasure smiling

Ah, no! In truth, I pray to live,

Though small the circuit given, In earnest zeal, to bless and give My best to other lives——to live

Approved by truth and Heaven!

LILIES.

We read of thee in sacred story,

Reflections of God's face, Not Solomon arrayed in glory

Could match thy peerless grace.

White robed and fair in purity,

With half hid golden heart, Enshrined in virgin sanctity,

Sweet emblems of God's art.

OUR QUESTION.

SOUL.

What is this world, the great wide world,

Of people and their fancies-
The rushing crowd, the careless whirl,
The banners Fame and Wealth unfurl,

The maze that round me dances ?

She wove her life of myths and dreams,
Of fabrics made of rainbow gleams,
A woof of crimson, warp of gold
Whose colors gay her stories told.

What is this throng of pleasures gay,

Entrancing and delusiveThe giddy throng that floats away, As some smooth strain of music may,

With no discord intrusive ?

But no lips smiled, and no hearts wept,
Within her life her soul still slept.
Her heart untouched, untaught its speech,
No other heart could touch or teach.

EDWARD SHERWOOD CREAMER.

E
DWARD SHERWOOD CREAMER was born

in Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland, about fifty years ago. He came to this country with his parents when he was eleven years old, and lived in New York City many years. At present he resides in Brooklyn, N. Y. During the War of the Rebellion he did honorable service in the cavalry of the Union army for over three years, fighting bravely as a volunteer in the First New York Mounted Rifles. He has for a long time contributed to newspapers and periodicals, notably to the Sunday edition of the New York Sun, a number of them going the rounds of the press. He has recently published a volume of poems entitled, “Adirondack Readings."

E. W. K.

And Life comes close and hears her prayer,
Aud Death her heart embalms with care,
And to her lips their cups of pain
Is pressed for her young soul to drain.

Dark wine of life, it gurgles up,
The blood of hearts-red in her cup;
The dregs of death, the sighs of souls
A mingled tide of sorrow rolls.

SONG OF THE UPLANDS.

GONE over the border land to the haven of rest,

tired voyager ! Old mother earth is gracious, and she received thee

with open arms. She knows her children at sight, and loves and

Sweet emblems meek, my still heart speak

In chastened flower-lore;
Thy beauty bend, thy fragrance lend,

With tear-drops dew it o'er.