PRIZE QUOTATIONS.

Cash prizes to the amount of Three Hundred Dollars will be awarded by the Publisher to the persons who will name the author of the greatest number of the Prize Quotations. Rules for Competitors may be found on another page.

69.

Because she looked upon the land with me, Because she looked upon it with her eyes, It seemed to me a land of sweetest guise, From savage mountain top to savage sea.

70.

Ah! now I know why fair young days were dark,
Why piteous tears of youth fell swiftly down,
Why at the dawning sang no morning lark,
Why sullen afternoons were full of frown.

I had not reached thy being's larger arc,

Nor worn, as thy great gift, Love's sacred crown.

71.

Play not the niggard; spurn thy native clod,
And self disown:

Live to thy neighbor, live unto thy God,
Not to thyself alone.

72.

Nature lives on, though king or statesman dies;
Thus mockingly these little lives of ours,

So brief, so transient, seem to emphasize
The immortality of birds and flowers!

73.

Hail, Prince of Peace! hail, King of Kings!
Who would not hail thy day of birth,
Sunshine with healing in his wings,
Light, love, and joy to all on earth!
Once more let all men be enrolled,
Thou the One Shepherd in our fold.

74.

These are the men,

The men who cleave, with sturdy stroke, A fallen giant's heart of oak,

Now build for life, and life's demands, And fill with bread the waiting hands.

75.

We love our dead, and hold their memories dear;
But living love is sweeter than regret;
God's ways are just; and, though they seem severe,
He can give back with blessings greater yet
Than we have lost. He chastens for some good
That in our weakness is not understood.

76.

What silence we keep year after year,

With those who are most near to us and dear: We live beside each other day by day,

And speak of myriad things, but seldom say The full, sweet word that lies just in our reach Beneath the commonplace or common speech.

77.

Work is the holiest thing in earth or heaven; To lift from souls the sorrow and the curse, This dear employment must to us be given, While there is want in God's great universe. 78.

But ever I hear an undertone

A subtle, sorrowful, wordless moan;
The dying note of a funeral bell;
The faltering sigh of a last farewell:
And ever I see through lurid haze,
The sober phantoms of other days -
In light that's sad as the ruin it frets,
The solemn light of a sun that sets.

79.

What will it matter by and by,
Whether with cheek to cheek I've lain
Close by the pallid angel, Pain,
Soothing myself through sob and sigh?
All will be elsewise, by and by!

80.

No generous action can delay

Or thwart our higher, steadier aims,

But if sincere and true are they,

It will arouse our sight and nerve our frames.
81.

A bird sang on the swinging vine,—
Yes! on the vine,-

And then, sang not;

I took your little white hand in mine;

'Twas April; 'twas Sunday; 'twas warm sunshine,Yes! warm sunshine:

Have you forgot?

82.

Deaf to the roar are those who make their home
Where sheer Niagara jars the primeval rock:
Let them but go and come: the awful boom
Strikes on their new-born ears with thund'rous
shock!

Blind are these eyes, except they note some change
They cannot see, until by contrast taught,
Then how obtuse, how narrow in their range
Are human senses and is human thought.

83.

Thou art thyself thine enemy!

The great!--what better they than thou? As theirs, is not thy will as free? Has God with equal favors thee Neglected to endow?

CURRENT POEMS.

BALLAD OF THE BIRD-BRIDE.

(ESKIMO.)

THEY never come back, though I loved them well.

I watch the south in vain;

The snow-bound skies are blear and gray,

Wild and wide is the wan gull's way,
And she comes never again.

Years agone, on the flat white strand,

I won my wild sea-girl:

Wrapped in my coat of the snow-white fur,

I watched the wild birds settle and stir,
The gray gulls gather and whirl.

One, the greatest of all the flock,

Perched on an ice-floe bare,

Calied and cried as her heart were broke,

And straight they were changed, that strange bird-folk,

To women young and fair.

Swift I sprang from my hiding-place
And held the fairest fast;

I held her fast, the sweet, strange thing.

Her comrades skirled, but they all took wing,
And smote me as they passed.

I bore her safe to my warm snow house;
Full sweetly there she smiled;
And yet, whenever the shrill winds blew,
She would beat her long white arms anew,
And her eyes glanced quick and wild.

But I took her to wife, and clothed her warm
With skins of the gleaming seal;

Her wandering glances sank to rest
When she held a babe to her fair, warm breast,
And she loved me dear and leal.

Together we tracked the fox and the seal,

And at her behest I swore

That bird and beast my bow might slay For meat and our raiment, day by day. But never a gray gull more.

A weariful watch I keep for aye

'Mid the snow and the changeless frost:
Woe is me for my broken word!
Woe, woe's me for my bonny bird,
My bird and the love-time lost!

Have ye forgotten the old keen life?
The hut with the skin-strewn floor?
O wild white wife, and bairnies three,

Is there no room in your hearts for me, Or our home on the low sea-shore?

Once the quarry was scarce and shy,

Sharp hunger gnawed us sore,

My spoken oath was clean forgot,

My bow twanged thrice with a swift, straight shot, And slew me sea-gulls four.

The sun hung red on the sky's dull breast, The snow was wet and red;

Her voice shrilled out in a woful cry, She beat her long white arms on high, "The hour is here," she said.

She beat her arms, and she cried full fain
As she swayed and wavered there.
"Fetch me the feathers, my bairnies three,
Feathers and plumes for ye and me,

Bonny gray wings to wear!"

They ran to her side, our bairnies three,
With the plumage black and gray,
Then she bent her down and drew them near,
She laid the plumes on our bairnies dear,
And some on her own arms lay.

"Babes of mine, of the wild wind's kin, Feather ye quick, nor stay.

Oh, oho! but the wild winds blow!
Babes of mine, it is time to go:

Up, dear hearts, and away!"

And lo! the gray plumes covered them all, Shoulder and breast and brow.

I felt the wind of their whirling flight: Was it sea or sky? was it day or night? It is always night-time now.

Dear, will you never relent, come back?
I loved you long and true.

O winged white wife, and our bairnies three,
Of the wild wind's kin though ye surely be,
Are ye not my kin too?

Ay, ye once were mine, and till I forget,
Ye are mine forever and aye,
Mine, wherever your wild wings go,
While shrill winds whistle across the snow
And the skies are blear and gray.

GRAHAM R. TOMSON. -Harper's Magazine, January, 1889.

THE BRIDE'S TRAGEDY.

"THE wind wears roun', the day wears doun, The moon is grisly gray;