THE STARS.

THEY wait all day unseen by us, unfelt;
Patient they bide behind the day's full glare;
And we who watched the dawn when they

were there,

Thought we had seen them in the daylight melt, While the slow sun upon the earth-line knelt.

Because the teeming sky seemed void and bare, When we explored it through the dazzled air, We had no thought that there all day they dwelt. Yet were they over us, alive and true, In the vast shades far up above the blue,The brooding shades beyond our daylight ken-Serene and patient in their conscious light, Ready to sparkle for our joy again,—

The eternal jewels of the short-lived night.

For there is promise in the air,
And murmurous prophecy;
All breathless and with lifted arms,
Stand waiting shrub and tree.
-A Song of May.

POVERTY.
"I'm a poor little fellow, with no one to teach me;
But my soul is a new one - fresh from God;
And He gave me something so brave and holy,
It never can turn to an earthly clod.
The birds never sing, 'Little Willie is ragged!'
Nor the flowers, 'He will soil us. Take him
away!'

But they 're glad when I happen to look and to listen,

And the blue sky is over me night and day."

-Willie.

C'

CHARLES G. WHITING.

HARLES GOODRICH WHITING was born at St. Albans, Vt., January 30, 1842, being the eldest child of Calvin and Mary (Goodrich) Whiting. Mr. Whiting's parents removed to Massachusetts when he was four or five years old, and he has lived all his life, save for a year in Southern New Jersey, within twenty-five miles of Springfield. He went to school very little, on account of delicate health, worked in a paper mill, on a farm, kept country store, and in fact did whatever came to hand in the common Yankee fashion. Having acquired a little Latin, a little French, and a good general acquaintance with history and English literature, he began the business of life when he was twenty-six years old by getting a place as reporter on the Springfield Republican. On that journal he has remained ever since, a period of twenty-one years, excepting for a year and a half spent at Albany, N. Y., in 1871-2, upon the Albany Times,-now an able Democratic journal conducted, as then, by T. C. Callicot. Mr. Whiting has been since February, 1874, literary writer and general editorial writer on the Springfield Republican, which department has the reputation of being one of the best appearing in any daily paper in this country. On the organization of the Republican company in 1878, after the death of the celebrated Samuel Bowles, he became a partner of the company. He has published one book "The Saunterer," containing selections of prose and verse. In September, 1885, he wrote an ode of considerable length, irregular and unrhymed, for the most part, for the dedication of a soldiers' monument in Springfield. In acknowledgment the Grand Army Post of that city presented him an elaborately printed and bound copy of the ode, and this he regards as the principal honor of his life. Mr. Whiting is a member of the Authors Club, New York. N. L. M.

TRAILING ARBUȚUS.
WHEN the gray air breathes chill in early spring,
And coldly fall the cheerless sunset gleams;
When the sere grasses rustle, whispering
Of life that is, of death that only seems;
When the wild wind soughs in the weaving wood,
With secret summoning of bud and leaf,
And wails along the bare and withered rood
As in an ecstasy of lonely grief,
Then, springing from decaying fern and sedge,-
First signal of the new-awakening earth,—
On sunny slopes along the forest edge,

Surprising with its loveliness their dearth
The blessed arbutus but half conceals
The tender beauty its perfume reveals.

THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER.

I COULD not choose but gaze

And then thank God!

So goddess-like her figure was, so sure
The poise of her imperial head,

So firm and white her shapely throat, so pure
The calm, harmonious curves that fed
My eyes with rest and art's content secure:
Ingrate were I to gaze

And not thank God.

For beauty is His gift,

In flesh or stone:

Statue of Milo, that superbly glows,
The ideal woman sublimate,-

Or that supreme of Michael Angelo's,

The wondrous Night, who holds in state The pregnant secret of divine repose,— The seeing soul uplift

Toward His own!

So, stranger of to-day,

You serve me well:

Your temperate eyes, lit by a tranquil joy,
Beneath brows shaded by a past
Wherein life was not found a bauble toy,
Your tender mouth, whose full lips fast
Hold yet the kisses of your baby boy,—
O stranger of a day,

You serve me well!

Aye, beauty is of God

And speaks His praise.

The marble glory of the sculptor fills
The inspiration of His deed;

The living woman from His grace distills
A grace whereon the soul doth feed;
And each and all are but the tribute rills
Unto the stream of God

Which flows always.

THE PAGEANT.

THE world its treasures freely opes
For him that climbs and him that gropes;
But he alone who scorns their hopes,
Lives on beyond the realm of graves.

The world all that it hath reveals,
But its great exit darkly seals;
Hero or coward,-each one feels

In night the solemn clew that saves.

The world its battle still repeats,
Its hero conquers and retreats,—
No more in conquests than defeats
Abides the crown the victor wins.

The world its palling pageant shifts;
Its actors change, its purpose drifts,
Its lances droop, its banner lifts:
It ends not, but fore'er begins.

WITH A COPY OF SHAKESPEARE.
THIS is the deep profound that imports man;
His shoals, his rapids, all are chartered here;
There is no joy of voyage and no fear
That is not bodied in this mighty plan.

He knew where the sweet springs of love began,
And whence the fires of hate and horror peer,
What wakens merriment, and how appear
The raging passions that bewitch and ban.
Herein behold how nobly souls may mount,
How basely fall; and see as well how sweet
The common rill of human life may run.
It is at once the ocean and the fount;

The compass of our triumph and defeat;
The heart of earth, the splendor of the sun.