JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY was born at Dowth

JOHN

Castle, County Meath, Ireland, on June 28, 1844. After serving an early apprenticeship to journalism on the Drogheda Argus, he removed, at the age of seventeen, to England, where he continued his journalistic work. When only eighteen years old he enlisted as a trooper in the Tenth Hussars, otherwise known as the "Prince of Wales' Own." While there he became an apostle of revolutionary doctrines, was arrested for high treason, and in June, 1866, was sentenced to death. The sentence was afterward commuted to twenty years' penal servitude. He was confined, in various English prisons until October, 1867, when he, with several other political convicts, was transported to finish his sentence in the penal colonies of West Australia. After enduring prison life there for about a year, he made his escape in an open boat, was picked up at sea by the American whaling bark “Gazelle," and finally reached Philadelphia, in November, 1869. In July, 1870, he became editor of the Boston Pilot, of which he is at present editor and co-proprietor.

Mr. O'Reilly's literary career dates from his. arrival in America. He first attracted attention by his original and powerful ballads of Australian life. The " Amber Whale,' "Dukite Snake," "Dog Guard," "Monster Diamond," King of the Vasse," and others, following in quick succession, showed to the world of readers that a new and virile singer had come to be heard. It is worth remembering that it was not then as it is now in the literary life of Boston. It is less than twenty years since, but long enough for a wholly different school of poetry to have arisen. Then, it may be safely said, it required a voice of more than common strength and melody to reach the ear of the world. Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, Lowell, Bryant, were all doing work worthy of their prime. Bret Harte, with his fresh strong lyrics, and Joaquin Miller, crowned with the praise of London critics, seemed to have preempted whatever field there might be for new singers. There was no room for another bard, except where room always is, at the top. The unknown youth, with no credentials but his talents, came with an unfashionable Irish name into a community which did not then discriminate too kindly in favor of a political convict whose politics were of the Fenian persuasion. Yet he took almost at once the place that was his by right of genius, in a literary circle which is always jealous, but never narrow, in defining its boundaries.

Mr. O'Reilly's work is known to all readers. He prefers to be known by it and through it. Otherwise one might be tempted to write indefinitely of his personal character, his unbounded popularity with all classes, his catholic sympathy with the oppressed and suffering of every class, creed and

color his healthy, robustness, mental and physical. But all these are patent in his writings, which reflect the man as in a mirror. In the scant leisure of an active journalist's busy life, supplemented by unceasing and earnest labors in the cause of Irish nationality, he has found time to write half a dozen or more books, including his "Songs of the Southern Seas," published in 1873; "Songs, Legends and Ballads," in 1878; "Moondyne," a novel, in 1879; "Statues in the Block, and Other Poems," in 1881; "In Bohemia," in 1886; "The Ethics of Boxing and Manly Sport," "Stories and Sketches," in 1888; and one or two volumes as yet unpublished. J. J. R.

God! what was that, like a human shriek
From the winding valley? Will nobody speak?
Will nobody answer those women who cry
As the awful warnings thunder by?

Whence come they? Listen! And now they

hear

The sound of the galloping horse-hoofs near ;
They watch the trend of the vale, and see
The rider who thunders so menacingly,
With waving arms and warning scream
To the home-filled banks of the valley stream.
He draws no rein, but he shakes the street
With a shout and the ring of the galloping feet;
And this the cry he flings to the wind :
"To the hills for your lives! The flood is behind!"
He cries and is gone; but they know the worst—
The breast of the Williamsburg dam has burst!
The basin that nourished their happy homes
Is changed to a demon- It comes! it comes!

A monster in aspect, with shaggy front
Of shattered dwellings, to take the brunt
Of the homes they shatter-white-maned and

hoarse,

The merciless Terror fills the course

Of the narrow valley, and rushing raves, With Death on the first of its hissing waves, Till cottage and street and crowded mill Are crumbled and crushed.

But onward still,

In front of the roaring flood is heard
The galloping horse and the warning word.
Thank God! the brave man's life is spared!
From Williamsburg town he nobly dared
To race with the flood and take the road
In front of the terrible swath it mowed.
For miles it thundered and crashed behind,
But he looked ahead with a steadfast mind;
"They must be warned!" was all he said,
As away on his terrible ride he sped.

When heroes are called for, bring the crown
To this Yankee rider: send him down
On the stream of time with the Curtius old;
His deed as the Roman's was brave and bold,
And the tale can as noble a thrill awake,
For he offered his life for the people's sake.

JACQUEMINOTS.

I MAY not speak in words, dear, but let my words be flowers,

To tell their crimson secret in leaves of fragrant fire;

They plead for smiles and kisses as summer fields for showers,

And every purple veinlet thrills with exquisite desire.

O, let me see the glance, dear, the gleam of soft confession,

You give my amorous roses for the tender hope they prove;

And press their heart-leaves back, love, to drink their deeper passion,

For their sweetest, wildest perfume is the whisper of my love!

My roses, tell her, pleading, all the fondness and the sighing,

All the longing of a heart that reaches thirsting for its bliss;

And tell her, tell her, roses, that my lips and eyes are dying

For the melting of her love-look and the rapture of her kiss.

A LOST FRIEND.

My friend he was; my friend from all the rest;
With childlike faith he oped to me his breast;
No door was locked on altar, grave or grief;
No weakness veiled, concealed no disbelief;
The hope, the sorrow and the wrong were bare,
And ah, the shadow only showed the fair.

I gave him love for love; but, deep within,
I magnified each frailty into sin;
Each hill-topped foible in the sunset glowed,
Obscuring vales where rivered virtues flowed.
Reproof became reproach, till common grew
The captious word at every fault I knew.
He smiled upon the censorship, and bore
With patient love the touch that wounded sore;
Until at length, so had my blindness grown,
He knew I judged him by his faults alone.

That when the veil was drawn, abased, chastised, The censor stood, the lost one truly prized.

Too late we learn —a man must hold his friend Unjudged, accepted, trusted to the end.

IN BOHEMIA.

I'd rather live in Bohemia than in any other land;
For only there are the values true,
And the laurels gathered in all men's view.
The prizes of traffic and state are won
By shrewdness or force or by deeds undone;
But fame is sweeter without the feud,
And the wise of Bohemia are never shrewd.
Here, pilgrims stream with a faith sublime
From every class and clime and time,
Aspiring only to be enrolled

With the names that are writ in the book of gold;
And each one bears in mind or hand
A palm of the dear Bohemian land.
The scholar first, with his book - a youth
Aflame with the glory of harvested truth;
A girl with a picture, a man with a play,
A boy with a wolf he has modeled in clay;
A smith with a marvelous hilt and sword,
A player, a king, a ploughman, a lord —

And the player is king when the door is past.
The ploughman is crowned, and the lord is last!

I'd rather fail in Bohemia than win in another

land;

There are no titles inherited there,

No hoard or hope for the brainless heir;

No gilded dullard native born

To stare at his fellow with leaden scorn:

Bohemia has none but adopted sons;

Its limits, where Fancy's bright stream runs;
Its honors, not garnered for thrift or trade,
But for beauty and truth men's souls have made.
To the empty heart in a jeweled breast
There is value, maybe, in a purchased crest;
But the thirsty of soul soon learn to know
The moistureless froth of the social show;
The vulgar sham of the pompous feast
Where the heaviest purse is the highest priest;
The organized charity, scrimped and iced,
In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ;
The smile restrained, the respectable cant,
When a friend in need is a friend in want;
Where the only aim is to keep afloat,

And a brother may drown with a cry in his throat. Oh, I long for the glow of a kindly heart and the grasp of a friendly hand,

And I'd rather live in Bohemia than in any other land.

A TRAGEDY.

A SOFT-BREASTED bird from the sea
Fell in love with the light-house flame;

And it wheeled round the tower on its airiest wing,
And floated and cried like a lovelorn thing;
It brooded all day and it fluttered all night,
But could win no look from the steadfast light.

For the flame had its heart afar,—
Afar with the ships at sea;

It was thinking of children and waiting wives,
And darkness and danger to sailors' lives;
But the bird had its tender bosom pressed
On the glass where at last it dashed its breast.
The light only flickered, the brighter to glow;
But the bird lay dead on the rocks below.

A WHITE ROSE.

THE red rose whispers of passion,

And the white rose breathes of love;

Oh, the red rose is a falcon,

And the white rose is a dove.

But I send you a cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal tips;

For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips.

AUSTRALIA.

NATION of sun and sin,

Thy flowers and crimes are red,
And thy heart is sore within
While the glory crowns thy head.
Land of the songless birds,
What was thine ancient crime,
Burning through lapse of time
Like a prophet's cursing words?

Aloes and myrrh and tears
Mix in thy bitter wine:
Drink, while the cup is thine,
Drink, for the draught is sign
Of thy reign in the coming years.

REMORSE.

I REMEMBER when I was a boy
That a grown girl wanted to kiss me;
And I struggled, was angry, and shy,
And ran off when she tried to caress me.

And I've thought of that day through the years;
(What a moral, my friend, lies in this!)
Under every sweet leaf that appears
Lurks a pain for the loss of that kiss.

AT BEST.

THE faithful helm commands the keel,
From port to port fair breezes blow;
But the ship must sail the convex sea,
Nor may she straighter go.

So, man to man; in fair accord,

On thought and will, the winds may wait;
But the world will bend the passing word,
Though its shortest course be straight.
From soul to soul the shortest line
At best will bended be:

The ship that holds the straightest course
Still sails the convex sea.

A DEAD MAN.

THE Trapper died—our hero- and we grieved; In every heart in camp the sorrow stirred. 'His soul was red!" the Indian cried, bereaved; "A white man, he!" the grim old Yankee's word.

So, brief and strong, each mourner gave his best -How kind he was, how brave, how keen to track; And as we laid him by the pines to rest,

A negro spoke, with tears: "His heart was black!"

YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW.

Joys have three stages, Hoping, Having, and Had: The hands of Hope are empty, and the heart of Having is sad;

For the joy we take, in the taking dies; and the joy we Had is its ghost.

Now, which is the better - the joy unknown or the joy we have clasped and lost?

A DISAPPOINTMENT.

HER hair was a waving bronze, and her eyes
Deep wells that might cover a brooding soul;
And who, till he weighed it, could ever surmise
That her heart was a cinder instead of a coal!

DISTANCE.

THE world is large, when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide;

But the world is small, when your enemy is loose on the other side.

For the burdens the rich endure;
There is nothing sweet in the city

But the patient lives of the poor.
Oh, the little hands too skillful,
And the child-mind choked with weeds!
The daughter's heart grown willful,
And the father's heart that bleeds!
-The Cry of the Dreamer.
WOMAN.

A man will trust another man, and show
His secret thought and act, as if he must;
A woman - does she tell her sins? Ah, no!
She never knew a woman she could trust.

LIFE.

The world was made when a man was born;
He must taste for himself the forbidden springs,
He can never take warning from old-fashioned
things;

He must fight as a boy, he must drink as a youth, He must kiss, he must love, he must swear to the truth

Of the friend of his soul, he must laugh to scorn
The hint of deceit in a woman's eyes

That are clear as the wells of Paradise.
And so he goes on, till the world grows old,
Till his tongue has grown cautious, his heart has
grown cold,

Till the smile leaves his mouth, and the ring leaves his laugh,

And he shirks the bright headache you ask him to