EVA KATHERINE CLAPP. GOLDEN--ROD. E WHEN the swift field spider weaves From the hill, Shorn and still, By the brooklet's reedy edge, All in state Doth she wait, When the summer groweth late. Motley is her retinue: Courtiers true, Come to sue VA KATHERINE CLAPP was born in Brad ford, Ill., August 10, 1857. Her father removed from Western Massachusetts and preëmpted a section of the best farming land in the State. There he built a log house of the frontier type, and in this his children were born. Miss Clapp's pater 1 nal grandmother was Lucy Lee, who was a direct descendant, on her father's side, from the famous Indian princess, Pocahontas. Her mother was Ann Ely, from Litchfield, Conn., a direct descendant from Lady Alice Fenwick, a romantic figure in collonial times, of Old Lyme, Conn. Miss Clapp passed the first eleven years of her life under her mother's watchful care, on her father's farm. After her mother's death she lived with a married i sister. She attended school at Amboy, at the Dover Academy, and subsequently at the Milwaukee Female College. While her studies were pur- 1 sued in a desultory manner and at irregular intervals, she learned very rapidly and easily. When about sixteen years old she visited for a time in the large eastern cities, and subsequently taught school in Western Massachusetts. She commenced to write at an early age. Her first story, written when she was twenty years old, was a novel entitled “Her Bright Future," drawn largely from life. Some thirty thousand copies were sold. This was followed by a A Lucky Mishap” and “Mismated," which reached a sale of about ten thousand copies; “A Woman's Triumph," and a serial first published in one of the Chicago dailies as “Tragedies of Prairie Life,” and subsequently published in book form as a “A Dark Secret." She has written many short stories and sketches, and has done considerable editorial work. Her poems have had a wide circulation. Miss Clapp's writings are characterized by a high moral tone. Her Bright Future" is in itself an eloquent sermon on the evil of intemperance, while “Mismated cibly the errors in our social system which its title indicates. Miss Clapp's poems have appeared in the Chicago Current, the Interior, the Chicago Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Inter Ocean, the Boston Budget, and she writes regularly for the Boston Transcript, and the Register, of Berlin, Germany. Her poems are to be published in book form, under the title, “Songs of Red Rose Land.” Miss Clapp became the wife of Dr. C. B. Gibson of Chicago, in 1892, and spent a year in Europe, where Mrs. Gibson made a special study of the literature of Germany and France. I. R. W. Butterflies with wings out spread, Here they meet, At her feet, From no well-kept garden bed Doth she list her yellow head. Gorgeous-hued is she and wildSummer's wayward gypsy child. Her rich sprays Softly blaze By the homely weed-grown ways. In her tawny, tangled hair Spanish colors doth she wearRoyal, fervid tints that hold All the summer's burning gold; And each line, Clean and fine, presents for Through my idly dreaming brain, Princess of the blooming train, Ah! how many fancies chase, Musing on thy ardent grace Come and go, To and fro, Like the ocean's rhythmic flow. Who can tell in what far place Now that Spring comes apace, bringing fragrance Grew the founders of thy race? of flowers Who can tell ?-perchance they sprang To her chill northern love, like a fair, sunny bride, Where the shepherds piped and sang, What memories will sadden these long, listless By the sea, hours, On those free What hope make amends for Life's best hope deFlower-clad plains of Arcady. nied? This only, this only, the surge of Time's river Sweeps on evermore to Eternitie's breast, The keen nerves of pain must at last cease to quiver, The weariest brain find oblivion and rest. Or if not, if this spirit, unchanging, immortal, Lives on through the ages supernal and free, portal, As clouds meet and mingle above the wild sea. Adieu, happy dream, for Life's day-star has vanished, “WHEN RILEY SINGS. Burned out into darkness and left me alone In a night more intense, for a bliss so soon ban- : The immortal beauty of God's simple things ished, We understand and bless When Riley sings. Once more we smell the sweetness far and wide That passion so deathless, too faintly concealed; Of locust blossoms, in the warm June-tide. Though no more, never more to your gaze, my Rustle of leaves and lovers' talk we hear proud lover, And childhood's laughter, innocent and clear; This soul to its depths be expressed or revealed. And everywhere gleams humor bright and true, Clean as the sunshine in a drop of dew. Yet what more can be said ? earth is full of such Thrilling with sympathy the heart's still springs grieving; Leap upward to the light We loved, drinking deep of the gladness of life; When Riley sings. And your kiss on my lips held a charm full retrieving Joyous we read, how purity and worth All griefs of the past, wasted years of my life. Make glad the quiet corners of the earth, So be brave fainting heart, though thy life's light is Till we are fain, with yearning hearts and warm, failing To wander back again to that old farm And thy wealth is all pledged on the cast of this Where gray-haired parents wait and watch and pray die. For the loved one who bides so long away. If against Fate's decree proves thy strife naught Bright hopes and dreams and days long dead he availing, brings Then break, foolish heart, thou shalt utter no cry. Again to life, as tenderly he sings; Heaven's love and goodness seem more close at Could one deep draught of death but call back or hand, recover And all the world as but one household band. The rash, fatal step that so vainly we mourn, I would drain its dark cup to the dregs, aye my Sing on, true poet, for the age is cold, lover! And hearts grow hard striving for place and gold. Count anguish but light thus for thee to be borne. We need the sweet evangel of thy song, All for thy sake, not mine, since my brightest ideal, For we are weary and have wandered long. Enshrined in thy being, brought rapture supreme; And so for this we give thee thanks and praise And the boundless content of Love's long delaye That in the magic mirror of thy lays, real Through smiles and tears and pathos keen as pain Outshone-yes, by far, all my dim, girlish dream. Childhood's lost Paradise we find again. A DREAM OF SAPPHO. MARY R. P. HATCH. MR In summer nights, when Philomel's despair pain Soft-crumpled where the drowsy Loves have lain. She comes while faint, sweet odors everywhereThe white day-lilies' souls-float thro' the air. Hover and drift above the garden's space. Ah ! stately singer, hushed are lute and lyre; What dost thou hear, with pale, impassioned face, In this cold age? No more thy deathless fire Thrills in a kiss or hallows with its grace The sweet yet bitter pain of love's desire. a THE SOLDIER'S WIDOW. At the dim close of the November day May; gray. Columbia's children, of your birthright proud, Oh! in this peaceful year's calm autumn-tide, Let to new deeds of love your hearts be vowed For those whose dearest ones have fought and died For us. By generous act with fervid phrase allied, Thy pride, America, prove justified. RS. MARY R. P. HATCH, poet and story writer, was born in the town of Stratford, N. H., June 19th, 1848. She is the daughter of Charles G. and Mary Blake Platt. Her ancestors were English. The Blakes settled in Dorchester, Mass., in 1620, and the Platts in Stratford, Conn., the families presenting a long line of illustrious names, from Admiral Blake, the naval hero, to Senator Platt, who managed the Copyright Bill in Congress. The list includes the Blakes, Judsons and McLellans of literary fame. Mrs. Hatch's life has been spent in the Connecticut valley. In childhood she possessed a quiet manner, sensitive disposition, was a close observer and a student of nature. She early developed scholarly and literary tastes. At the age of fifteen she left the common schools and attended the academy at Lancaster, eighteen miles from her home. There she studied the higher mathematics, rhetoric, Latin and French, and there her ability as a writer was discovered and recognized. From that time she contributed sketches on various subjects for the county papers, and articles under her pen-name “Mabel Percy," from time to time appeared in the Portland Transcript, Peterson's Magazine, Saturday Evening Post and other papers and periodicals. Since then, under her true name, she has written for Zion's Herald, Springfield Republican, Chicago Inter-Ocean, the Writer, the Epoch, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and others. After leaving school she became the wife of Antipas M. Hatch. Their family consists of two sons, and as the wife of an extensive farmer she has been a busy woman. Her management of her home has left her some time to devote to literature, and her versatility has enabled her to do creditable work in the wide realm of short stories, dialect sketches, essays and poems, grave and gay, vers de societe and verses in dialect. “The Bank Tragedy,” published serially in the Portland Transcript, was issued in book form and was a great success. Other stories from her pen are “Quicksands,” “The Missing Man” and “Polimpsa: A Psychical Study.” Mrs. Hatch is painstaking and careful in all her work, following out lines of thought suggested by little things, and making everything count for its greatest value. Personally she is petite in figure, a blonde, with regular features and aspect of frailness. She is a pleasing conversationalist, keeps thoroughly posted on the current events of the day, maintains a lively interest in political and religious matters and possesses a generous fund of common TO VICTOR HUGO. Majestic mother of a hero-race! -Sunset. an H. A. T. sense. |