inspiration for every writer's characteristics, and so I suppose I must say that Mrs. Dandridge is devoted to the nature studies of John Burroughs, and to the nature poems of Wordsworth. But she is also a close reader of Shakespeare, who belongs no more to the woods and fields and hills than to courts, taverns and the high seas. I prefer to think that Mrs. Dandridge is a poet in herself and apart from the influence of books. J. E. B. THE RAINBOW. TO A. S. D. WE are akin, dear soul: Akin as are the rainbow in the sky, The runnel on the knoll: We are akin in spirit, you and I. Ah! how serene and bright! Of rounded life upon the cloudy height: You catch the light of heaven and repeat All its transcendent splendor in your face, And beautify a place With radiance of a glory and a grace. Thus is your life, O soul! But I am like the stream That hurries down the knoll, As changeful as a dream: As restless and as wild As an impatient child: Yet thankful, dear, if in some tranquil space, I may reflect the radiance of your face. TO A POET. If thou art a poet-son of God Fix upon the heights thy steadfast glance; Listen with quick ear to catch His word; Speak, as He shall give thee utterance. Speak what earth unseals to thee, Why the strong sun sets And the planets rise; Why the rainbow spans The wet summer skies; What the forests utter, With incessant sour; What the caverns mutier, Rumbling underground. What the crag reveals Where man never trod: What the abyss conceals Of the ways of God. What the eagle calls To the wild glen: What the waterfalls Answer again. What the snake hisses; The owl's hooting tells. What the hawk screameth What the heart dreameth In mother's breast. In a pleasant voice; Why the birds rejoice. Why the flowers fade; Why the earthworm dies; While the chrysalids Change to butterflies. What the message of the rose, Or the violet; Why each sweetest thing that grows Is with tear-drops wet. What the mind guesses, Groping its way. Each unto each; In silver speech. Let thine inspiration, What all God's Creation Still tracked by our Dead; By this white, awful Mystery, Haggard and dead. PRIMROSE. -The Dead Moon. Humbly I bend upon the greening sod DESIRE. Come, dear Desire, and walk with me; The spider sitteth at her loom, To weave her silken nets again. I know a field where bluets blow Like frost from fingers of the night, And in a sheltered coppice grow POETRY. Then let a song for soothing float From out the hermit thrush's throat. Upon a mountain side apart, -Desire. Where blows no breath of earthly care, There let him cheer his gentle heart, And drink him drunk with mountain air. -Pegasus. DEATH. Ah! for lost joy, and scent of fading rose; By all the many signs of Love; I pray you tell me so. We meet by day, we part by night; We join our clinging hands; And still, between us and delight A spirit barrier stands. Alas! these phantoms should not be, My friend, my lover, and my love- -Let Down the Bars. JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE. most AMES JEFFREY ROCHE was born May 31, 1847. in Queen's County, Ireland, a auspicious soil for a poet. Through his father, Edward Roche, Esq., an able mathematician and scholar, still living and occupying the office of Provincial Librarian in Prince Edward Island, he inherits the literary quality dominant in his temperament and his art. The family settled in Prince Edward Island in the same year. The boy was educated by his father, and later in St. Dunstan's College. Here, at the age of fifteen, foreshadowing his career, he turned journalist and proudly edited the college weekly unto the urn and ashes" of its infant end. His youth had a fair share of spirited adventure, an encountering of odd characters and scenes, a sharp observance of events, and a close, rapid, honest mental life. In 1866 he strolled alone into the open gates of Boston, fell into the clutches of commerce, and prospered there, yet with revertings thenceforward to literature, his early love and first unconscious choice, keeping up, in print, a running fire of the arch, absurd, unique humor which has since given his name its note. Already married, in 1883, he shifted into his natural posture and became assistant editor of the Boston Pilot, a position entirely to his mind, which he still fills. A man of activity, eminently social, interested in all public matters, sensitive and independent, he has done, without any premeditation, much energetic and brilliant work, of which a "History of the Filibusters in Spanish America," a novel, and a drama are yet in manuscript. In 1886 he published "Songs and Satires," a distinct success, and an earnest of healthful and unhurried growth. Nothing injures Mr. Roche's fun so much as his seriousness. When a throat is able to give out a ringing bass song of sport or war, we cease to demand falsetto of it, however quaint and dexterous. It is, perhaps, an unhappy gift, this of divided skill, for it sometimes necessitates a pause, an adjustment, a choice. It is a grim truth that the humorous has no place on the top peaks of Parnassus: to be great, one must be grave. But Mr. Roche, of all men, can afford to let his lighter talent, exquisite as it is in kind, go by, so long as he can throw into his metrical narratives the same keenness and decisiveness of thought, the same life and grace of phrase, which have glorified his cap-and-bells. Something in the generous and sym; athetic air of to-day has colored his verses, ever and anon, with a light, humanitarian and revolutionary; but his protests, made as they are of beautiful philosophy, come from him with an odd grace only, and belie Timon's part with a look of Mercutio. A poet, as a poet merely, had best sing out his unregenerated music and leave great causes alone, unless they have overwhelmed him of his nature and their own will. The witty secretary of the Papyrus Club is undedicated, however he should deny it, and liegeman to no theory, at heart. He sends his gallant and unbookish fancies on profane errands. "Some to the wars, to seek their fortune there, Some to discover islands, far away." Mr. Roche is, first, a scrivener and chronicler, utterly impersonal, full of joy in deeds, a discerner between the expedient and the everlasting right, wholly fitted to throw into enduring song some of the simple heroisms of our American annals. We bid fair to have in him an admirable ballad-writer, choosing instinctively and from affection "that which lieth nearest," and saying it with truth and zest. His Muse, like himself, is happy in her place and time; none too much at the mercy of sentiment; coming through sheer intelligence, to the conclusion of fools, and going her unvexed gypsy ways with an “All's well!" ever on her lips. L. I. G. THE WAY OF THE WORLD. The hands of the Robber redly wear But the hands of the Man are hard and scarred The slaves of Pilate have washed his hands THE WATER-LILY. IN the slimy bed of a sluggish mere With nought of grace or worth. The gelid fish that floated near But the butterfly and the honey-bee, |