CURRENT POEMS.

It was almost dark, and the moments sped,

And the searching night wind found us, But he drew me nearer and softly said(How the pure, sweet wind grew still, instead, To listen to all that my lover said;

Oh, the whispering wind around us !)

FREEDOM.

I am sure he knew when he held me fast,

That I must be all unwilling;
For I tried to go, and I would have passed,
As the night was come with its dew, at last,

And the sky with its stars was filling.
But he clasped me close when I would have fled,

And he made me hear his story, And his soul came out from his lips and said, (How the stars crept out where the white moon led, To listen to all that my lover said;

Oh, the moon and the stars in glory!)

My work is done; the eventide is here;

My wages now I ask of Thee.
Not gold nor jewels do I crave, my Lord,

But, Master, set my spirit free!
The shadows lengthen on my glacier path,

Heavier the chains that fret me here; I ask for freedom from their crushing weight.

'Tis life, not death, I hold in fear!

I know that the grass and the leaves will not tell,

And I'm sure that the wind, precious rover, Will carry my secret so safely and well

That no being shall ever discover One word of the many that rapidly fell

From the soul-speaking lips of my lover;

And the moon and the stars that looked over Shall never reveal what a fairy-like spell They wove round about us that night in the dell,

In the path through the dew-laden clover, Nor echo the whispers that made my heart swell As they fell from the lips of my lover.

HomeR GREENE.

My work is done; the hour of rest draws near;

The vesper-bells toll clear and sweet. Unto the agéd should be spared, my Lord,

The pains that torture tired feet. According to my need, I ask of Thee

That Thou bestow the promised wage. If faithful I have been in small and great,

Wilt Thou not now my pangs assuage ? My work is done; take me within the gate

Where enter only those Thou wilt;
A city lighted by Thy glory great,

The city not by mortals built.
Come quickly, I beseech, and freely give

The guerdon in its full degree,
Which Thou hast promised unto every man

According as his work shall be.

And should any chance to see us,

Goodness! how they'll agonize!
How they'll wish that they could be us,

Kissing in such liberal wise!
Never mind their envious whining; .
Come, my Lesbia, no repining!

EUGENE FIELD. -Second Book of Verse.

NOTES.

BLUNT. The portrait of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt used in this number of THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY was taken in the prison dress he wore at Galway.

Howe. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic," by Julia Ward Howe, will be found in THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY, April, 1891, Vol. 3, page 245.

VAN FREDENBERG. “The Praise of Death,” now first published, was written in reply to Mr. Dobson's poem, “The Cance of Death."

GREENE. The following letter, written by Mr. Greene several years ago, will explain itself :

HONESDALE, Pa., Nov. 26, 1888. P. P. Smith, Esq.

My Dear Sir: Your favor of the 22d inst., concerning the poem "What My Lover Said,” is at hand. I will say to you in reply that the poem was certainly written by me. I made the first draft of it while at home on my vacation in the summer of 1875, completed and perfected it on my return to college in the fall, and in November sent it to the New York Evening Post for publication. Mr. Francis E. Leupp, who was at that time on the editorial staff of the Post, has described, in an article published some years ago in the Syracuse Herald, the way in which he received the poem from me through the mails, changed the title slightly, and cut down my name, which I had signed in full, to the simple initials “H. G." The poem then appeared for the first time in the issue of the daily Post of November 19, 1875, and of the semi-weekly Post of November 23d, 1875. The test of any other claim of authorship should rest upon the ability to show a prior publication. To any one who will produce a copy of the poem printed in any publication of an earlier date than November 19, 1875, I will cheerfully make a deed of my Highland Cottage" property at Honesdale, which I value at $15,000. The controversy has afforded me more entertainment than annoyance, and I have not taken the trouble before to reply in so explicit a manner as this to any of the numerous letters of inquiry I have received concerning the poem. You will understand that I do this for you on account of " Auld acquaintance" sake. Sincerely yours,

HOMER GREENE. Hunt. “Jennie Kissed Me." Marian Lee in the Critic writes: “This little stanza, the authorship of which is attributed to Leigh Hunt, is an old acqnaintance of the American public, and the impression is widespread that the lady who thus honored the poet was Mrs. Jane Welsh Carlyle. I had seen it stated so often and so positively that I accepted it as one does the catechism-upon trust;

but a question that appeared, a short time since, in American Notes and Queries, set me to thinking. Taking it for granted that Mrs. Carlyle was the Jenny,' I found myself asking, 'What wrought her up to this osculatory fervor ?" Nothing in her life or her letters indicates this lady to have been given to 'gush.' Where, then, are we to look for the mainspring of the jumping' immortalized by the bard ?

"In a publication called, I think, Queries, I found it asserted that Mrs. Carlyle kissed Leigh Hunt on his bringing the news that her husband had been awarded a pension of 300l per annum by the British Government. Here was a reason with a vengeance! A pension! Had the great apostle of literary independence felt an itching in his palm, and yielded his finger to toy with the Government purse-strings? My attention once fixed upon this point, I found this reason for Jenny's kiss to be the generally received one; but I knew it to be a direct contradiction of Mr. Froude's published statements on the pension subject, so to Froude I determined to appeal. But I wanted an authority to quote. The articles I had met were anonymous, and I sought for a name—a name of note.

“ All comes, sooner or later, to the patient; so, on a certain day, I set jubilant eyes on the thirtyninth volume of Harper's Magazine, and exclaimed, 'Eureka!' For here Mr. Moncure D. Conway, in the fourth of his 'South Coast Saunterings in England,' asserted most roundly the verse, the Jenny, the kiss and the pension. Mr. Conway speaks of the pension awarded by England to her literary children as a 'graceful custom;' says that, instead of being a bribe to sycophancy it is usually bestowed upon those 'who have been most faithful to their ideals ;' and that Carlyle, 'who consented through long, dreary years to be painfully poor, rather than turn his pen to the kind of work that promised gain, was pensioned by the nation he had so remorselessly criticised.' To this he adds : «His friends can remember the happy scene when Leigh Hunt came with the happy news, for telling which Mrs. Carlyle kissed him. To this kiss, so characteristic of one of the noblest of women, we are indebted for one of Leigh Hunt's charming improvisations.' Here was a foeman worthy of Froude's steel. I immediately presented the matter to his notice, and, by return mail, received the following reply, in which the illustrious English author stands stanchly by his colors :

DECEMBER, 20, 1888. “MADAM:—I have read your letter with much surprise. I never heard that Mrs. Carlyle had kissed Leigh Hunt. I think it exceedingly unlikely that she ever did, and equally unlikely that if she ever had Leigh Hunt would have written a poem about it. * * * I never heard that a pension had been offered to Carlyle

nets.

until near the end of his life, when he refused it. I am certain no pension was ever offered to him while Leigh Hunt was alive, and I am certain, also, that at no time of his life, even when he was in extreme poverty, would Carlyle have accepted any pension. Moncure Conway may possess information which is unknown to me, but in the absence of any authority which would lead me to believe it, I do not hesitate to regard the story as without foundation. You may make any use you please with this letter. Your faithful servant,

“'J. A. Froude.' “Nothing can be more explicit, and I think Mr. Froude's denial of the pension should be published as widely as Mr. Conway's assertion. Doubtless a record is kept of all pensions granted by the English Government, so that the truth can be established beyond controversy. If ‘Conway possesses information not known'to Froude, let him make good his statement; but if Carlyle refused all Government emolument to the very last, let him not, in this lucre-loving age, be debarred the credit due such self-denial.”

-)(BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Rossetti, DANTE GABRIEL. Ballads and Son

New York: White, Stokes & Allen. 16mo, pp. 287.

Ibid. Poems. New York: White, Stokes & Allen. 16mo, pp. 26 and 282.

CLAPP, Eva KATHARINE. Songs of Red Rose Land. Advance sheets.

Hatch, Mary R. P. Miscellaneous poems.

BLUNT, WILFRED SCAWEN. In Vinculis. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1889. 18mo, pp. 8 and 64.

IBID. The Love Sonnets of Proteus. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1885. 18mo, pp. 12 and 120.

IBID. The Wind and the Whirlwind. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1883. 12mo, pp. 41.

Wright, Hattie Leonard. Miscellaneous poems.

RHODERICK, GEORGE CARLETON, JR. Miscellaneous poems.

Daniel, MARION DALANA. Miscellaneous poems.

CREAMER, EDWARD SHERWOOD. Adirondack Readings. Buffalo: Charles Wells Moulton, 1893. 16mo, pp. 116.

HowE, JULIA WARD. Passion-Flowers. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1856. 16mo.

IBID. Words for the Hour. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1857. 16mo, cl., pp. 165.

Ibid. Later Lyrics. Boston: Lee & Shepard.

WORKS CONSULTED IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS

NUMBER OF THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY."

I 2mo.

Norton, CAROLINE ELIZABETH. Poems: two volumes in one. New York: C. S. Francis & Co., 1857. 12mo, pp. 239 and 388.

Foss, SAM WALTER. Back-Country Poems. Illustrated. Boston: The Potter Publishing Co., 1892. 12mo, pp. 258. "ARNOLD, Birch.”

Miscellaneous poems. Rich, HELEN HINDSDALE. A Dream of the Adirondacks and Other Poems. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1884. 12mo, pp. II and 171.

BATES, Clara Doty. Miscellaneous poems.

ALLERTON, ELLEN P. Annabel and Other Poems. New York: John B. Alden, 1885. 12mo, PP. 153.

Ruskin, John. Poems. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1884. 12mo, pp. 6 and 239.

BLAKE, Mary ELIZABETH. Verses Along the Way. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1890

Ibid. Birthday Book. Arranged and edited by her daughter, Laura E. Richards. Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1889. 18mo, pp. 292.

-)(-
THE EDITOR'S TABLE.

For engravings in this number of THE MAGAZINE of . POETRY, the editor acknowledes the courtesy of the Buffalo Electrotyping and Engraving Co., Buffalo, N. Y.; The Potter Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.; Bryant Lecture Bureau, New York; Garretson, Cox & Co., Buffalo, N. Y.

pp. 166.

LAZARUS, EMMA. The Poems of Emma Lazarus, in two volumes. Boston: Houghton, Miffin & Co., 1889. 16mo, pp. 342 and 257.

WARD, ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS. Songs of the Silent World and Other Poems. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1885. 16mo.

For copyright poems and other selections the editor returns thanks to Potter Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.; G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York; John B. Alden, New York; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, Mass.; Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York; Paul, Trench & Co., London, Eng.; Charles Wells Moulton, Buffalo, N. Y.; Lee & Shepard, Boston, Mass.