Tiny hands and little feet,

Pretty, dainty Marguerite.

Eyes as when the cloudless skies Dappled are with Summer's dyes, And through film of stormless night Flash soft rays of starry light; Teeth as milk of pearl congealed, When by tinkling laugh revealed, And from dimples' coy retreat Smiles peep out loved ones to greet, Merry, artless Marguerite.

Fair of form as wax from mold,
Gay of heart and purely souled:
Sweet of tongue, whose lispéd words
Are jubilant as songs of birds;
Charming all with winsome ways,
Moon of night and sun of days
To the hearthstone. Fairy feet
As ever danced to music's beat,

Witching, darling Marguerite.

Not a soil of earth yet stains,
Know not eyes of sorrow's rains;
Never were thy heartstrings strung
By passion, or by misery wrung;
Free from envy, strife or fears,
Save washed away by baby tears;
Waves of time as they retreat,

Have left no hopes wrecked at thy feet,
Pure and sinless Marguerite.

LIFE'S CHANGES.

ON a green, mossy bank, near a swift speeding brook

When May was but roses and song,

A laughing babe played with a frail, tiny seed,
As the hours sped golden along:
She tossed it aloft in the glittering air,
Then caught as it fell from on high,
Till tired of play threw it careless away,
And the brooklet sped merrily by.

The seasons rolled on. A fair girl in her pride
Of beauty and tresses of gold,

Stooped to pick a bouquet of the dew-laden buds
That grew where the tiny seed rolled;

She drank in their perfume, with lips whose deep red

Shamed even the rose buds, and high
Her silver voice rang in its innocent mirth –
While the brook still sped merrily by.

On, on rolled the years. A woman's hand plucked
The flowers at soft eventide,

To twine in her tresses, now deeper than gold,
Ere she stood at the altar—a bride!

A song on her lips slumbered sweetly and warm,
And Love was the theme of the lay,

While her heart danced as light as the sun-gilded

waves

Of the brook as they hurried away.

Again a May came. A mother stood there
And robbed the rose-tree of its charms,
To twine a sweet wreath for the soft, tiny brow
Of the loved one she tossed in her arms;
And sweeter, though softer her matronly song
Filled the listening ear with its lay-
'Twas a heart gush of love and praise that thrilled
forth-

Yet the brooklet kept ebbing away.

A score more of years and a widow knelt low
Where the babe tossed the tiny seed high:
In vain looked she now for blossom or bud,
And her laughter had changed to a sigh:
The rose-tree was dying, and soon withered leaves
Graced her bier as it slow passed along-

It was all of the babe and the seed that remained,
Yet the brooklet sped on with a song.

HEART PICTURES.

(To My Wife.)

HER hair is the gold-brown of chestnuts, Her eyes blue as the heavenly zone, Her skin as the snow of the lily,

When rose-blushes are over it blown; Her lips shame the heart of carnation,

Her movements are exquisite grace,
Her voice is the sweetest of music,
And smiles lie asleep on the face
Of the woman I love.

There is less of gold glint in her tresses,
A few threads of silver wove through,

The crimson of lips not so vivid,

And lighter the eyes in their blue; Her movements more stately and grander, Though losing no whit of their grace, And the smiles are more patient and tender That shine on the matronly face

Of the woman I love.

Faded out all the brown and the sunshine,
Burnished silver the curls of hair shine,
In her eyes less of earth, more of heaven-
Less stained are the cheeks with life's wine;

The skin not so lily in whiteness,

Paler now the rose waves o'er them roll;
But the voice still retains all its sweetness,
And the face is illumed by the soul
Of the woman I love.

Earth, keep her to bless and to brighten,
Death, send not thy stern fiat down;
And Heaven, linger long in the weaving
Strands of gold and of pearl for her crown.
There are angels enough clothed in glory-
Few given life's griefs to assuage;
And the tenderness, purity, beauty,
Are perfected and hallowed by age
In the woman I love.

HONOR.

The dying daughter of Time is LoveHonor the living son of Eternity.

WOMAN.

The soul of the beautiful woman
Is only girl's purified snow.
LOVE.

Love is stronger than death, than the grave's deep tide,

As the pride of earth, 'tis of heaven the pride.
-Love After Death.

MOTHER.
I don't 'spose yer givin' ter doin' things bad,
But ef yer ever larned that way,
Didn't thar rise up out of yer heart
Somethin' yer'd heard yer mother say?
And didn't yer think of her always,
And didn't yer hold yer breath

When a woman war sinnin' and sufferin',
And goin' down ther black gulch of Death?
-Hangtown Jim.

TRANSMUTATION.

Before the act the action, the thought before the deed,

The bud before the flower, the flower before the seed,

In all of mind or matter another must precede. Before the song of poet the inspirations come, Before the honey sweetness the wild bees busy hum, Before the panting tempest the silence vast and dumb.

ALICE W. BROTHERTON.

M

RS. ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON in a letter to a friend says: "What can you say of a life so sequestered as mine except, 'She is born, is married, will die,' like the needy knife-grinder; 'Story, God bless you I have none to tell.' I was born in Cambridge, Indiana, but have passed most of my life in Cincinnati, and have never been east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. So you see I am purely one of the aborigines. As to my 'versing' that began soon after I was out of school. I think it was in 1872 I first sent my poems out to seek their fortune."

Mrs. Brotherton lives quietly on East Walnut Hills, Cincinnati. In her home life she is the personification of devotion and domestic happiness. Graduating from one of the Cincinnati High Schools at an early age, it was not long before her bright soul attracted its affinity, hence the love, cottage and three interesting children which now divide with her writing all the mother-poet's time. Those poems in which the heart and its phases of joy and woe are treated are by far her best productions. Living in her own home with little of the outside world to distract her, the poet has grown wise feeding upon her own soul-thoughts. Hers is a busy life in that little home in East Walnut Hills; a life full of home and its motherly and wifely duties performed so faithfully. Crowded in among these, her songs have sprung up from her rich experience-experience not with the world but with the double nature of all poetical lives. The friction of one with the other she has used; no force has been wasted. Never has the home 1 fe been neglected, or made secondary to the writer's life.

She has been for many years a contributor to the Century, The Independent, Atlantic Monthly, and Ser bner's Magazine. Her first separate publication was

-Ab Initio.

TELEGRAPH.

Ours to frame the slender railway,
Belting earth, till space is naught,
O'er which rolls the lightning engine,
With the laden train of thought.
-Songs of the Toilsmen.

PRELUDE.

WHAT is your art, O poet? Only to catch and to hold In a poor, frail word-mould

A little of life;

Into the valleys the waters rolled;

Hillocks and meadows disappeared.
Grasping the helm in his iron hold
On, right onward, St. Olaf steered;
High and higher the blue waves rose.
"On!" he shouted, "No time to loose!"

Out came running the elves in a throng,
Out from cavern and rock they came:
Now, who is this comes sailing along
Over our homes? Ho! tell us thy name?"
"I am St. Olaf, my little men,
Turn into stones till I come again."

The elf-stones rolled down the mountain-side;
The sturdy Ox sailed over them all.
Ill luck be with thee!" a carline cried,

"Thy ship has shattered my chamber wall!”
In Olaf's eyes flashed a fiery glint:
"Be turned forever to rock of flint!"

Never was sailing like this before:

He shot an arrow along the wind;
Or ever it lighted the ship sailed o'er
The mark: the arrow fell far behind.
"Faster, faster!" cried Olaf, "Skip
Fleet as Skidbladnir, the magic ship!"

Swifter and swifter across the foam

The quivering Ox leaped over the track,
Till Olaf came to his boyhood's home;
Then fast as it rose the tide fell back.

And Olaf was king of the whole Norse land
When Harald the third day reached the strand.

Such was the sailing of Olaf the king,
Monarch and Saint of Norroway;
In view of whose wondrous prospering
The Norse have a saying unto this day:
"As Harald Haardrade found to his cost,
Time spent in praying is never lost!"

UNAWARES.

A SONG welled up in the singer's heart, (Like song in the throat of a bird,) And loud he sang, and far it rang,

For his heart was strangely stirred; And he sang for the very joy of song, With no thought of one who heard.

Within the listener's wayward soul
A heavenly patience grew.
He fared on his way with a benison
On the singer, who never knew
How the careless song of an idle hour
Had shaped a life anew.

PLIGHTED. A. D., 1874.

"Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one."
NELLIE loquitur.

BLESS my heart! You're come at last.
Awful glad to see you, dear!
Thought you'd died or something, Belle-
Such an age since you've been here!
My engagement? Gracious! Yes.
Rumor's hit the mark this time.
And the victim? Charley Gray,

Know him, don't you? Well, he's prime.
Such mustachios! Splendid style!
Then he's not so horrid fast-
Waltzes like a seraph, too,

Has some fortune-best and last. Love him? Nonsense. Don't be "soft."

Pretty much as love now goes;

He's devoted, and in time

I'll get used to him, I s'pose.

First love? Humbug. Don't talk stuff.

Bella Brown, don't be a fool! Next you'll rave of flames and darts Like a chit at boarding school. Don't be "miffed," I talked just so Some two years back. Fact, my dear! But two seasons kill romance,

Leave one's views of life quite clear. Why if Will Latrobe had asked

When he left, two years ago, I'd have thrown up all and gone Out to Kansas, do you know? Fancy me a settler's wife!

Blest escape, dear, was it not?
Yes, it's hardly in my line

To enact "Love in a Cot."
Well, you see, I'd had my swing,

Been engaged to eight or ten:
Got to stop some time of course,

So it don't much matter when.
Auntie hates old maids, and thinks
Every girl should marry young-
On that theme my whole life long
I have heard the changes rung!
So, ma belle, what could I do?

Charley wants a stylish wife,
We'll suit well enough, no fear,
When we settle down for life.
But for love-stuff! See my ring?
Lovely, isn't it? Solitaire.
Nearly made Maud Hinton turn

Green with envy and despair, Hers aint half so nice, you see-Did I write you, Belle, about

How she tried for Charley, till
I sailed in and cut her out?
Now she's taken Jack McBride,
I believe its all from pique-
Threw him over once you know,-

Hates me so she'll scarcely speak.

O yes! Grace Church, Brown, and that,

Pa won't mind expense at last, I'll be off his hands for good;

Cost a fortune two years past. My trousseau shall outdo Maude's,

I've carte blanche from Pa, you know; Mean to have my dress from Worth! Won't she just be raving though?

A SONG OF FLEETING LOVE.
LOVE has wings as light as a bird,
Guileless he looks, as a dove, of wrong;
Whatever his song, be it brief or long,
It still has this for an overword:
Love has wings!

Though to-day the truant may stay,
Though he wooes and sues and sings,
Only sorrow to maids he brings;
Pout him and flout him, laugh him away:
Love has wings!

Hold your pulses calm, unstirred-
Calm and cool as a woodland pool,
Let not his song your heart befool;
List, through it all, for the overword.
Love has wings!

UNDER THE BEECHES.

IN the gray beech shadows

Dewey violets hide,

Anemone and blood-root
Blossom side by side;

And the tall, white trillium
On her slender stem,
Like some pale Court beauty
Bends to them.

In the gray beech shadows

It was years ago

When last I saw the wind-flower

And Spring-beauty blow: But my heart grows tender With a yearning wild

For the woods I strayed in

When a child.

Is there any dainty

Tasting half so sweet As the wild May-apple That we used to eat? Any costly jewel

With as rich a glow

As the red rose-heart showed Long ago?

QUATRAINS.

THE MAXIM OF APOLLONIUS. Better in some mean shrine beside the way To find a statue of ivory and gold, Than in a lofty temple to behold

A huge, coarse figure of the common clay. THE FALLING STAR.

See where yon star falls headlong, flashing
Across the purple twilight air!—

An Angel bears to earth from heaven
The answer to a mortal's prayer.

A WOMAN'S CHOICE.

No laurel-nay! Give me heartsease, I pray. Laurel grows on the heights so lone and cold; But heartsease clusters by the warm threshold, And brightens with its blossoms all the day.

LARGESS.

Ah, when a kingly soul doth largess give, How far its worth exceeds the gift itself! The slightest thing outweighs a miser's pelf When round it cluster memories that live.

THE UNWRITTEN MESSAGE.

To carry thought how weak
Are words, mere idle signs.
Heart-deeps to heart-deeps speak
Between the lines.

OF TIRELESS PATIENCE.

(A Persian Fable.)

Before the close-barred gate of paradise

A poor man watched a thousand years; then dozed One little instant only, with dulled eyes;

That instant open swung the gate-and closed.

SEPTEMBER,

Lush juices of ripe fruits; splashed color flung From Frost's first palette-purple, gold and red; The last sweet song the meadow-lark has sung, Dirge of the Summer dead.

NOW.

Has one a tender thought of me? Speak it (I pray!) O friend, to-day.