PEACE

By Charles De Kay

EEN gleams the wind, and all the ground

Is bare and chapped with bitter
cold.

The ruts are iron; fish are found
Encased in ice as in a mold;
The frozen hilltops ache with pain

And shudders tremble down each shy
Deep rootlet burrowing in the plain ;-
Now mark the sky.

Softly she pulls a downy veil

Before her clear Medusa face;
This, falling slow, abroad doth trail
Across the wold a feathery trace,
Whereunder soon the moaning earth
Aslumber stretches dreamily,
Forgot both pain and summer's mirth,
Soothed by the sky.

A

APRIL

By Samuel Longfellow

GAIN has come the Spring-time,
With the crocus's golden bloom,

With the smell of the fresh-turned earth

mould,

And the violet's perfume.

O gardener! tell me the secret

Of thy flowers so rare and sweet!
-"I have only enriched my garden
With the black mire from the street."

NOVEMBER

By Samuel Longfellow

HE dead leaves their rich mosaics,
Of olive and gold and brown,
Had laid on the rain-wet pave-
ments,

Through all the embowered

town.

They were washed by the autumn tempest,

They were trod by hurrying feet,

And the maids came out with their besoms,

And swept them into the street,

To be crushed and lost forever

'Neath the wheels, in the black mire lost, The Summer's precious darlings,

She nurtured at such cost!

O words that have fallen from me!
O golden thoughts and true!
Must I see in the leaves a symbol

Of the fate which awaiteth you?

THE CRICKETS

By Harriet McEwen Kimball

IPE, little minstrels of the waning

year,

In gentle concert pipe! Pipe the warm noons; the mellow harvest near;

The apples dropping ripe;

The tempered sunshine and the softened shade;

The trill of lonely bird;

The sweet sad hush on Nature's gladness laid;
The sounds through silence heard!

Pipe tenderly the passing of the year;
The Summer's brief reprieve;

The dry husk rustling round the yellow ear;
The chill of morn and eve!

Pipe the untroubled trouble of the year;
Pipe low the painless pain;

Pipe your unceasing melancholy cheer;
is in the wane.

The year

C

COME FOR ARBUTUS

By Mrs. Sara L. Oberholtzer

OME for arbutus, my dear, my dear:

The pink waxen blossoms are waking, I hear;
We'll gather an armful of fragrant wild cheer.

Come for arbutus, my dear, my dear,

Come for arbutus, my dear.

Come for arbutus, my dear, my dear;

Come through the gray meadow, and pass the black weir,

To brown-margined forest, and part the leaves

sere.

Come for arbutus, my dear, my dear,

Come for arbutus, my dear.

Come for arbutus, my dear, my dear;
We'll gather the first virgin bloom of the year,
The blush of spring kisses with coral lips near.
Come for arbutus, my dear, my dear,
Come for arbutus, my dear.

THE DANDELIONS

By Helen Gray Cone

PON a showery night and still,
Without a sound of warning,
A trooper band surprised the
hill,

And held it in the morning.
We were not waked by bugle-

notes,

No cheer our dreams invaded,

And yet, at dawn, their yellow coats
On the green slopes paraded.

We careless folk the deed forgot;
Till one day, idly walking,
We marked upon the self-same spot
A crowd of veterans talking.

They shook their trembling heads and gray
With pride and noiseless laughter;
When, well-a-day! they blew away,
And ne'er were heard of after !

HYMN TO DARKNESS

By J. Norris

AIL thou most sacred venerable thing!

What Muse is worthy thee to sing?

Thee, from whose pregnant uni

versal womb

All things, even Light thy rival,
first did come.

What dares he not attempt that sings of thee
Thou first and greatest mystery?

Who can the secrets of thy essence tell?
Thou like the light of God art inaccessible.

Before great Love this monument did raise,
This ample theatre of praise.

Before the folding circles of the sky
Were tun'd by Him who is all harmony.
Before the morning stars their hymn began,
Before the councel held for man.

Before the birth of either Time or Place,

Thou reign'st unquestion'd monarch in the empty

space.