The poetical work of Mrs. Converse has won high praise. Lord Alfred Tennyson and Dom Pedro emperor of Brazil, each sent to the author graceful letters of commendation on the publication of "Sheaves." Mrs. Converse is also an industrious writer of prose, and has two volumes nearly ready for the press, one to be entitled "The Religious Festivals of the Iroquois Indians," the other "Mythology and Folk Lore of the North American Indians." In the prime of life, she has doubtless her best work before her.

Mrs. Converse resides in New York City. Personally she is attractive, genial and generous. Her friendships are warm, enthusiastic and abiding, while her heart is sympathetic and her hand open to the needs of her kind. In her presence you forget that she is literary, which is perhaps the most satisfactory social trait any literary woman can exhibit. MRS. G. A.

And weary of her laurelled dust),
Oh! give her faith that shall endure,
And make her waning strength more sure!
Haste then the Morn with swifter flight,
Thou tardy Night!

If in some hour unknown before,
Within the threshold of thy door,
With face so fair, yet unrevealed,
Whose silent lips are yet unsealed,
Love's messenger, with patience waits,
Conduct him to thy Morning's gates
In crimsoned garments; like the rose
Adorned with dews, that blushing glows
With warmth and trusting tendance wooed,
With Life's dear light through dawn renewed,
And bring Love's day - Love's promised light,
Thou welcome Night!

LIFE. I.

LIFE'S whirl and din!
The sands run in;
Work, busy brain;
Toil, care, and pain
Encompass thee;
Mortality

Thy destiny,
Humanity

Thine equity,

Divinity
Thy God!

DEATH.

II.

DEATH Solves the doubt!
The sands run out;

Rest, weary brain,
From care and pain,
Anxiety,

And agony,
In harmony,

Tranquility,
Eternity,
Of God!

UNFOLDED HOPES.

MANY a bud enfolds a hue that never sees the sun; Unfriendly thoughts have blasted hopes that love has just begun;

Many a rose unwatched hath grown where summer sunbeams lie,

That left its thorns unbared and brown to face the winter sky.

Many a stream has babbled love to neighboring flowers in dell,

That running seaward lost itself in moan and surging swell;

Many a tree disdains to bend that falls before the storm,

While flexile reeds submissively to frigid blasts conform.

Many a life with pride is launched that bears a 'golden name,

And drifts through waste of watery woe a wreck of bitter shame;

While adverse winds have tempests blown o'er craft of humbler sail,

That, tossed through spray of lashing waves, outrode the angry gale.

Many a growth of flaunting ease betrays a sterile soil,

While generous impulse shackeled dies in ruin of despoil;

Many a heart its glory wins e'en through a chast'ning rod,

And yields its sorrows, tears, and sighs to will of gracious God.

In the sighs of mortal breath enshrouded in thy woe,

Hath thy heart some mortal death that Death alone can know?

Watch not in thy Life's array its sepulchre of gloom, Thy Lord will roll the stone away from off its darkened tomb!

Doth His Easter radiance glow within thy life's full years

And with unturning hallowed flow, bring gladness to thy fears?

Hope that sought thee in thy pain with flowers thy brow adorns!

To-day the roses bloom again where yesterday were thorns!

MAY PEACE WITH Thee abide.
MAY peace with thee abide!
Though dreary seems the way,
No staff, no scrip, no guide,

And all thy heart astray.

May peace with thee abide!

And when thy burdens grow, Fear not, faint not; beside

The rock the waters flow!

May peace with thee abide! With care and toil oppressed, Submit; He will provide

For thee His grace and rest.

May peace with thee abide!

On thee may God's light glow' His peace is not denied, Although thou falter so.

IN MEDITATION.

WITHIN her fair white hands the Good Book lies;
As reverently slow she turns its leaves,
The violet shadows veil her wistful eyes,
And as the nightfall sure and slowly weaves,
I hear her dear voice clear and strong-
"Set me as a seal upon thy heart,
As a seal upon thy arm,

For love is strong as death!"

And as she reads the Israel song

Her lips are like a roseleaf curled apart

In spicy sweetness warm

With incense of its breath.

WILLIAM WILSEY MARTIN.

WIL

WILLIAM WILSEY MARTIN was born at Reading, in Berkshire, England, on the 11th of October, 1833. He was destined for the legal profession, but while serving with a solicitor, was offered an appointment in Her Majesty's Civil Service which he accepted, and in 1854 commenced an official career which has proved a successful one.

He has found time amid his exacting duties to indulge his natural love of literature and to make many a contribution in prose and verse to journals and magazines. In addition to the collection of poems under the title " By Solent and Danube" he has written many verses of a humorous character, and is the author of several plays.

He is known to a large circle as an elocutionist of great power and brilliancy: perhaps, as an oral interpreter of Tennyson he has never been surpassed. A. N. J.

RED BERRIES OF BRIONY.
RICH was the harvest he vow'd to reap,
When he planted his germ below;
"Love will give sheaves of red gold to keep,
And its fruit will be sweet, I know."

But his golden sheaves

Are the wrinkled leaves

By the gusty autumn borne;

And his fruit, the red berries of briony
That cling round a wither'd thorn.

Roses will throw me their blooms," she said,
When winter is white on the tree;

Love will bring clusters when leaves are dead
The vine's purple clusters to me.”

But her rose-tree stands
With roseless hands,

In the cold bleak air forlorn;

And her clusters are berries of briony
That cling round a wither'd thorn.

APPLE BLOSSOMS.

HAVE you seen an apple orchard in the spring? In the spring?

An English apple orchard in the spring?

When the spreading trees are hoary
With their wealth of promise-glory,
And the mavis pipes his story
In the spring!

Have you plucked the apple blossoms in the spring?

In the spring?

Have you walk'd beneath the blossoms in the spring?
In the spring?

Beneath the apple blossoms in the spring?
When the pink cascades are falling,
And the silver brooklets brawling,
And the cuckoo bird is calling,
In the spring!

Have you seen a merry bridal in the spring?
In the spring?

In an English apple-county in the spring?
When the bride and maidens wear
Apple blossoms in their hair,
Apple blossoms everywhere
In the spring!

If you have not, then you know not, in the spring,
In the spring!

Half the color, beauty, wonder of the spring.
No sweet sight can I remember

Half so precious, half so tender,
As the apple blossoms render
In the spring!

When thou, bereft of sleep, Shalt prayerful vigil keep, And, peering in the gloom Of thy encurtain'd room, Shalt see, in vision-wise, his little cot, Shalt hear his evening prayer, And kiss his forehead fair,

Stroke his yellow hair,

Then listen for thy darling's sleeping breath,

Now hush'd in death;

And when Reality, with stony eyes,

Sits on thy couch, and thou dost realize

The dread decree

"Thou shalt go to him, but he Shall not, shall not return to thee;" When the fountains of thy woe Thine eyelids overflow, Drenching thy pillow in a bitter sea, Then will I think of thee,

Then my part shall be

To weep with thee.

Weep, 'twill ease thy pain; Tears are the kindly rain

By Heaven sent

To moisten our hard hearts beneath its sky,
Lest they should shrink, and shrivel, and be dry;
Lest the white blooms of Charity should die,
Faded and spent.

Oh! there is joy in sadness,

There is bliss in tears

Amid the summer showers,

The arched bow appears

A promise gleaming through the mists of years, In characters that burn and glow

Sorrow shall cease- tears shall not always flow.

THE HUMAN CRY.
I.

THE human lifts a wailing to be heard,

And clinging hands to clutch the dim Unknown That draws forever back behind His throne Who gives good gifts; but speaketh not a word. II.

The world grows old: still lifts the bitter breath : Why? Tell us - Why? behind our prison bars ! O Children! are we wise? Hope crown'd with stars Is ours and Love that dieth not-and Death!

INNERMOST. I.

CAN aught into the Innermost intrude?

The cryptic chamber of the heart of man,

Whereof his closest knoweth not the plan,— Can aught dwell there save self and solitude? II.

No other self walks with me o'er its floors; The nearest, dearest, truest of my friends Knows but the vestibule; nor ever wends Beyond the silence of its guarded doors.

III.

The reflex of a smile is sometime thrown,
A Mother's smile, upon its inner way,
Sweet lips and eyes of tenderness, to stay
Awhile with Love; but not to keep the throne.
IV.

The crypt is void, although a dear dead face,
With faint aureola of angel's hair,

Brings down at times a light that lingers there, That sheds its gold, yet cannot fill the place.

V.

O small white hand now clasping nothingness! O voice of song! could she in life have fill'd The inner chamber and its aching still'd? Nay- God alone must fill it--nothing less!

THE PEARL OF PEACE.

A BIVALVE feeding in the warm salt sea
Draws inward, with the wave, a sandy grain,
Which, not returning with the wave again,
Remains henceforth its secret grief to be.
Day after day, so sea-wise folk agree,

The creature hides it in a dew-like rain
Of ceaseless tears, till, harden'd out of pain,
A precious pearl is fashion'd perfectly.

From outer seas of passion, seas of strife,
There drifts at times upon the human heart
A secret rankling grief that day by day
We cover with the bitter tears of life,
Till, wrought of pain from out our nobler part,
The pearl of Peace remains with us alway.

QUATRAINS.

AMBITION.

The royal eagle hawketh not for flies,

Nor mates the soaring skylark with the wren; So, scorning narrow aims of lesser men, Move to their goal, the minds of high emprise. FRIENDSHIP. I.

Some Friendships are like leaves; when skies are fair

Their green flags flutter, making glad the day;