He dashed down the line, 'mid a storm of huzzas, And the wave of retreat checked its course there,

because The sight of the master compelled it to pause. With foam and with dust, the black charger was

gray; By the flash of his eye, and the red nostril's play, He seemed to the whole great army to say, “I have brought you Sheridan all the way From Winchester, down to save the day!”

Sat up at his table,

Lay down in his bed:Oh, cold was the bridegroom, But colder the dead! - The Wagoner of the Alleghanies.

THE BRAVE AT HOME.

Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan!
Hurray! hurrah for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky,
The American soldiers' Temple of Fame,
There with the glorious general's name,
Be it said, in letters both bold and bright,

“Here is the steed that saved the day, By carrying Sheridan into the fight,

From Winchester, twenty miles away!”

The maid who binds her warrior's sash

With smile that well her pain dissembles, The while beneath her drooping lash

One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles, Though Heaven alone records the tear,

And Fame shall never know her story, Her heart has shed a drop as dear

As e'er bedewed the field of glory.

ECONOMY.

Not with a bondmaid's hand, but housewife's care, Who holds chaste plenty better than rich waste.

- The New Pastoral.

The wife who girds her husband's sword,

Mid little ones who weep or wonder, And bravely speaks the cheering word,

What though her heart be rent asunder, Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear

The bolts of death around him rattle, Hath shed as sacred blood as e'er

Was poured upon the field of battle. The mother who conceals her grief

While to her heart her son she presses, Then breathes a few brave words and brief,

Kissing the patriot brow she blesses, With no one but her secret God

To know the pain that weighs upon her, Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod Received on Freedom's field of honor.

-Ibid..

AMERICA.

And let thy stature shine above the world, A form of terror and of loveliness.

-Ibid.

SONG.

TWINS.

Oh, cold was the bridegroom,

All frozen with pride; He first slew her lover,

Then made her his bride.

Beneath a green willow,

And under a stone, The buried her lover,

And left her alone.

With naught but the bridegroom's

Proud breast for her head, Oh, how could she live when

Her lover was dead?

I saw two beautiful children

Of one fair mother born, Playing among the dewy buds

That bloomed beneath the morn.
The same in age and beauty,

The same in voice and size,
The same bright hair upon their necks,

The same shade in their eyes.
Singing the same song ever

In the self-same silvery tune,
They passed from April into May,

Toward the fields of June.
They whirled, and danced, and dallied

The beautiful vales amid,
Till under the same thick leaves and flowers
Their future course was hid.

- The Twins.

Her body they buried

Beside the church-wall; Her ghost with the bridegroom

Sat up in the hall:

HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

A

MERICA has been the birth-place of a number

of female poets that have given to their country some of the sweetest songs in the English tongue. Women who have been revered and loved for the words of cheer and inspiration they gave to mankind, yet I doubt if any among them have ever received the same measure of love, the same amount of reverence, or have called forth the same feeling of kinship as Helen Hunt Jackson. Nor is this to be wondered at, for no other writer has ever touched so closely upon kindred themes; has ever so nearly reached the heart and the sensibilities. The Carey sisters probably came the nearest to this in their writings, and May Riley Smith has the faculty of clothing every-day events with a pathetic grace that voices the sentiments of her readers as they could not themselves; but while these laternamed have succeeded but in part in expressing and giving utterance to the only half-acknowledged tenderness within us, which we may feel but cannot speak, Helen Hunt has laid bare the whole recesses of the heart. Hers was a wonderful insight into human nature. Such intuition must have been heaven-born. Her songs are songs of faith, made perfect through suffering So strong her faith that others' faith must seem weak in comparison, and if one were for a moment led to doubt the existence of a God, that doubt must take Alight in a half-hour with Helen Hunt. This trust and love which predominated in her, and which pervaded all she wrote, or thought, or did, was the underlying cause of her mastery over human hearts. She had suffered, and by her sufferings was made strong. Who shall say she was not a chosen vessel to carry the Master's message to other fainting hearts ?

Mrs. Jackson was born in Amherst, Mass., October 15th, 1830. She was a daughter of the wellknown Professor Nathan W. Fiske, of Amherst College. She was graduated from the Ipswich Female Seminary, Massachusetts, and from the Messrs. Abbott's school of New York City. Her first husband, Major Edward B. Hunt, U. S. A., lost his life in 1863 by the premature explosion of a submarine battery he had invented. Two children, boys, were born to Major and Mrs. Hunt, one living less than a year, the other dying two years after the father's death had occurred. It was during this season of grief, the crucible to her as yet, untried soul, that faith gained the mastery, and, at the end of a year of bitter mental conflict, she came forth purified by her trial, ready to give to the world the benefit of her experience for which she had paid so dearly. She

had written but little previous to that time, but now her pen became her solace, and from then on until her death, August 12th, 1885, she wrote unceasingly. Her published works are “Verses” (Boston, 1871); Bits of Travel” (1872); “Bits of Talk About Home Matters ” (1873); “The Story of Boon” (Boston, 1874); “Bits of Talk in Verse and Prose,” for young folks, (Boston, 1876); “Mercy Philbrick's Choice (Boston, 1876); “Hetty's Strange History” (Boston, 1877); “ Bits of Travel at Home" (Boston, 1878); “Nelly's Silver-mine: A Story of Colorado Life" (Boston, 1876); “Letters from a Cat” (Boston, 1878); “Mammy Tittleback and Her Family: A True Story of Seventeen Cats" (Boston, 1881); “A Century of Dishonor" (New York, 1881); “The Training of Children" (New York, 1882); “Ramona" (Boston, 1884); “The Hunter Cats of Connorloa” (Boston, 1884); “Zeph: A Post-humous Story" (Boston, 1885); “Glimpses of Three Coasts” (Boston, 1886); "Sonnets and Lyrics" (Boston, 1886); “Between Whiles" (Boston, 1887); “The Procession of Flowers in Colorado” (Boston, 1887); with Kinney, Abbott, Condition and Needs of the Mission Indians of California," published by the United States government, (Washington, 1883). In 1883 Mrs. Hunt was appointed special commissioner to look into the condition of the Mission Indians of California. In 1875 she was married to William S. Jackson, a banker of Colorado Springs. The years passed in Colorado were happy ones. Her chosen resting place on the summit of Cheyenne mountain, four miles from her home, has never been a lonely one, for it has been the mecca of hundreds of tourists, until the path leading to her grave has become well worn from the footsteps of those who have gone to pay their tribute to her who was poet, sister and friend to the whole world.

J. W.

MY LEGACY.

They told me I was heir. I turned in haste,

And ran to seek my treasure, And wondered, as I ran, how it was placed;

If I should find a measure Of gold, or if the titles of fair lands And houses would be laid within my hands.

I journeyed many roads; I knocked at gates;

I spoke to each wayfarer
I met, and said, “A heritage awaits

Me. Art not thou the bearer
Of news ? Some message sent to me whereby
I learn which way my new possessions lie?"

And when at last I stood before his face,

I knew him by no token Save subtle air of joy which filled the place;

Our greeting was not spoken; In solemn silence I received my share, Kneeling before my brother and “joint heir."

My share! No deed of house or spreading lands,

As I had dreamed; no measure
Heaped up with gold; my elder brother's hands

Had never held such treasure.
Foxes have holes, and birds in nests are fed-
My brother had not where to lay his head.

The shortest absence brings to every thought

Of those we love a solemn tenderness.

It is akin to death. Now we confess, Seeing the loneliness their loss has brought, That they were dearer far than we had taught

Ourselves to think. We see that nothing less

Than hope of their return could cheer or bless Our weary days. We wonder how, for aught

Or all of fault in them, we could heed Or anger, with their loving presence near,

Or wound them by the smallest word or deed.

Dear absent love of mine. It did not need
Thy absence to tell me thou wert dear,
And yet the absence maketh it more clear.

My share! The right like him to know all pain

Which hearts are made for knowing; The right to find in loss the surest gain;

To reap my joy from sowing In bitter tears; the right with him to keep A watch by day and night with all who weep.

LAST WORDS.

My share! To-day men call it grief and death;

I see the joy and life to-morrow;
I thank our Father with my every breath

For this sweet legacy of sorrow;
And through my tears I call to each, "Joint heir
With Christ, make haste to ask him for thy share.”'

Dear hearts, whose love has been so sweet to know,
That I am looking backward as I go,
Am lingering while I haste, and in this rain
Of tears of joy am mingling tears of pain;
Do not adorn with costly shrub, or tree,
Or flowers, the little grave that shelters me.
Let the wild, wind-sown seeds grow up unharmed,
And back and forth all summer, unalarmed,
Let all the tiny, busy creatures creep;
Let the sweet grass its last year's tangles keep,
And when, remembering me, you come some day
And stand there, speak no praise, but only say,
“How she loved us! 'Twas that which made her

dear."
Those are the words that I shall joy to hear.

A WILD ROSE OF SEPTEMBER.

O wild red rose, what wind has stayed

Till now thy summer of delights ? Where hid the south wind when he laid

His heart on thine, these autumn nights ?