I love my neighbor like myself, this Ingin Summer day,

I feel it's glorious to live, for life is all O. K. Natur', the good ol' schoolmarm who pities our distress,

She gives her children every year this little glad

recess.

SWEETS FOR THE SWEET.

OH, these rondeaus and triolets are pretty as violets,

They 're dainty, artistic and neat ; They're Gallic, Parisian, and pinks of precision, And veritable sweets for the sweet.

They give a soft pleasure to young men of leisureThose beautiful feminine men

Who on literature's border crochet and embroider, And do "fancy-work" with the pen.

Their sapless aridities, their dry insipidities,

In statuesque beauty are wrought,

But 't would be unconventional to express an intentional

Wilful, original thought.

LIFE.

And all lives are a poem; some wild and cyclonic,
With verses of cynical bluster Byronic;
And some still flow on in perpetual benison,
As perfect and smooth as a stanza of Tennyson;
And some find huge boulders their currents to
hinder,

And are broken and bent like the poems of Pindar;
And some a deep base of proud music are built on,
The calm ocean smell of the epic of Milton;
And some rollick on with a freedom completer
In Whitman's chaotic, tumultuous meter.
But most lives are mixed, like Shakespearian
dramas,

Where the king speaks heroics, the idiot stam

mers,

Where the old man gives counsel, the young man loves hotly,

Where the king wears his crown and the fool wears his motley,

Where the lord treads his hall and the peasant his heather

And in the fifth act they all exit together,—

And the drama goes out with its pomp, and its thunder,

And we weep, and we laugh, and we listen, and wonder!

- The Cosmic Poem.

M

"BIRCH ARNOLD."

RS. ALICE ELOISE BARTLETT, author, was born in Delavan, Wis., September 4th, 1848. Her maiden name was Bowen, and she is widely known by her pen-name, “Birch Arnold.” Her first poem, "The Meeting of the Waters," was published in the Madison Democrat. With all its crudities it was unique and poetic, and the encouragement received determined her to enter into the field of literature as a profession. In 1877 she published her first novel, “Until the Daybreak," which at once gave her a rank among story writers. In 1872 she commenced to write for the Toledo Blade and Locke's National Monthly. Her articles attracted a great deal of attention, and D. R. Locke ("Petroleum V. Nasby") told a friend that he intended to "adopt that promising young man." His (Nasby's) chagrin on learning that the young man was a girl can be imagined. It has often afforded her amusement to find her utterances commented on as the "vigorous ideas of thinking men." To the world-at-large she still remains, and is often addressed as, "Birch Arnold, Esq." Ill health for several years prevented the continuous effort necessary to pronounced success, but lyrics, essays and miscellaneous writings have from time to time appeared over her signature. In 1876 she was married to J. M. D. Bartlett, of Quincy, IlI., and has two children. As a conversationalist she is interesting, and is an elocutionist of no ordinary ability. She is extremely sincere and earnest in her life, as well as her writings, and her heart is in the elevation of her sex and of humanity. Her latest work is a novel entitled "A New Aristocracy," (Detroit, 1891), dealing with women and the labor question. Her home is in Detroit, Mich. H. A. V.

THE WATER LILY'S SPIRIT.

MOONBEAM and night,
Mystical light,

Mingle and merge on the edge of the stream,
Where in a breath

As silent as death

The lily gives birth to the soul of a dream.

Gossamer wings, Vanishing things,

That flutter and dazzle, now fade and now shine, Lift from its heart

When the pale sepals part,

A spirit o'er human, though less than divine.

The summer's suns may rise and set,
And June-day fragrance fill the air;
I see thro' tears, nor can forget

That ever-hovering wraith of care; Though sorrow makes the sunshine less, They're one with thee, Forgetfulness!

Each heart must know its day of grief;
All earthly things must fade and die ;
Remembrance brings perchance relief,
Or bitterness of tear and sigh;
For me no other boon can bless
Alike to thee, Forgetfulness!

TO A BUTTERFLY IN NOVEMBER.

Он, pallid phantom of a joyous summer day,
That vaguely trembles on my window pane,
Dost lift thy heavy-lidded eyes in vain
To catch the westering sun's endearing ray?
Dost sigh for odorous breaths that idly play
Their sweet enchantments o'er the damask

rose,

Upon whose glowing breast thou might'st repose

And lull thy fears in dreams of blooming May?
Alas! thou art the idle sport of fate,

And winter's blast shall rudely smite thee down
Yet not alone shalt thou find all too late-
Thou might'st have worn thy summer's golden

crown;

Like thee, I lingering watch the waning light As swift the shadows rise of destined night.

REPROOF.

Love does not always heal with balm ;

The surgeon's knife some anguished wounds

must bare,

For oft their poison balks the tenderest care
That lies within the touch of pity's palm.
Who keeps for love a sweet, unbroken calm,

Like breath of some novitiate's cloistered prayer, Nor brooks the storm that frets the tranquil air, And sends a discord quavering through its psalm, Belittles love. That love is truest, best,

Which bravely learns to face all bitter things,
And yet in answering wisdom's high behest
Forgets no word of its sweet utterings;
And even as perforce it wields the knife

Recalls with its fond kiss to stronger life.

YOUTH AND I.

YOUTH was led by hope,

I leaned low to sorrow; Youth saw golden dreams

In every bright to-morrow;

I looked often back

Upon our flower-strewn track,

And when we reached the crest
Of the hilltop, looking west,
Youth and I, we parted.

Youth would follow love;
I knew love's devotion,
All its bitter sweet,

All its restless ocean;
Youth was eager, bold,
And I, a trembling hold
Upon his glowing hand,
Could only feebly stand;
So Youth and I parted.

Youth was glad to go,

And I am well content; Life is so much calmer

Since away he went; All the eager yearnings, All the old time burnings Of feverish desires,

Have quenched their fitful fires, Since Youth and I have parted.

Youth is far away,

But on the westward slope, Where glints the evening sun,

I once more welcome Hope; And Faith is close beside me, Her hand outstretched to guide me, Where shadows darkly close, Above earth's last repose,

When Life and I have parted.

UNSATISFIED.

E'EN thro' her radiant beauty, hour by hour,
I drink with draughts of darkly liquid eyes,
And listen oft her sweet and low replies,
And pluck again the fragrant crimson flower
Upon her cheeks and dewy lips that lies,
Insatiate still, with love's most sovereign power
As empty always as the Danaid's sieve-
My miser's heart will cry forever-Give.