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THE MEETING OF THE CENTURIES.

CURIOUS vision, on mine eyes unfurled

In the deep night. I saw, or seemed to see, Two Centuries meet, and sit down vis-a-vis, Across the great round table of the world. One with suggested sorrows in his mien

And on his brow the furrowed lines of thought. And one whose glad expectant presence brought A glow and radiance from the realms unseen.

Hand clasped with hand, in silence for a space,
The Centuries sat; the sad old eyes of one
(As grave paternal eyes regard a son)
Gazing upon that other eager face.

And then a voice, as cadenceless and gray
As the sea's monody in winter time,

Mingled with tones melodious, as the chime
Of bird choirs, singing in the dawns of May.

THE OLD CENTURY SPEAKS:

By you, Hope stands.

With me, Experience walks.

Like a fair jewel in a faded box,

In my tear-rusted heart, sweet pity lies.

For all the dreams that look forth from your eyes,

And those bright-hued ambitions, which I know Must fall like leaves and perish in Time's snow, (Even as my soul's garden stands bereft,)

I give you pity! 'tis the one gift left.

THE NEW CENTURY:

Nay, nay, good friend! not pity, but Godspeed, Here in the morning of my life I need.

Counsel, and not condolence; smiles, not tears,
To guide me through the channels of the years.
Oh, I am blinded by the blaze of light

That shines upon me from the Infinite.
Blurred is my vision by the close approach
To unseen shores, whereon the times encroach.

THE OLD CENTURY:

Illusion, all illusion.

List and hear

The Godless cannons, booming far and near.
Flaunting the flag of Unbelief, with Greed
For pilot, lo! the pirate age in speed

Bears on to ruin. War's most hideous crimes
Besmirch the record of these modern times.
Degenerate is the world I leave to you,-
My happiest speech to earth will be-adieu.

THE NEW CENTURY:

You speak as one too weary to be just.

I hear the guns-I see the greed and lust.
The death throes of a giant evil fill

Ofttimes makes fallow ground for Good; and Wrong
Builds Right's foundation, when it grows too strong.

Pregnant with promise is the hour, and grand
The trust you leave in my all-willing hand.

THE OLD CENTURY:

As one who throws a flickering taper's ray

To light departing feet, my shadowed way
You brighten with your faith. Faith makes the man.
Alas, that my poor foolish age outran

Its early trust in God. The death of art

And progress follows, when the world's hard heart Casts out religion. 'Tis the human brain

Men worship now, and heaven, to them, meansgain.

THE NEW CENTURY:

Faith is not dead, tho' priest and creed may pass, For thought has leavened the whole unthinking

mass.

And man looks now to find the God within.

We shall talk more of love, and less of sin,
In this new era. We are drawing near
Unatlassed boundaries of a larger sphere.
With awe, I wait, till Science leads us on,
Into the full effulgence of its dawn.

DEATH HAS CROWNED HIM A MARTYR. (Written on the day of President McKinley's death.)

N the midst of sunny waters, lo! the mighty Ship of State

Staggers, bruised and torn and wounded by a derelict of fate.

One that drifted from its moorings in the anchorage of hate.

On the deck our noble Pilot, in the glory of his prime,

Lies in woe-impelling silence, dead before his hour or time,

Victim of a mind self-centered in a Godless fool of crime.

One of earth's dissension-breeders, one of Hate's unreasoning tools

In the annals of the ages, when the world's hot anger cools,

He who sought for Crime's distinction shall be known as Chief of Fools.

In the annals of the ages, he who had no thought of fame

(Keeping on the path of duty, caring not for praise or blame),

Close beside the deathless Lincoln, writ in light, will shine his name.

Youth proclaimed him as a hero; time, a statesman;

love, a man;

Death has crowned him as a martyr, so from goal to goal he ran,

Knowing all the sum of glory that a human life

may span.

He was chosen by the people; not an accident of birth

Made him ruler of a nation, but his own intrinsic

worth.

Fools may govern over kingdoms-not republics of the earth.

He has raised the lovers' standard by his loyalty

and faith,

He has shown how virile manhood may keep free from scandal's breath.

He has gazed, with trust unshaken, in the awful eyes of death.

In the mighty march of progress he has sought to do his best.

Let his enemies be silent, as we lay him down to

rest,

And may God assuage the anguish of one suffering woman's breast.