CURRENT POEMS.

OUTCAST.

WOMAN and man, cast out
From the garden of the Lord,
Before them, danger and doubt,
Behind them, the flaming sword,

Gaze in each other's eyes;

Lo! what outweighs the ban? "We have hope," the woman cries, "We have love," the word of the man. SOLOMON SOLIS-COHEN. -Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1890.

GULIELMUS REX.

THE folk who lived in Shakespeare's day,
And saw that gentle figure pass
By London Bridge-his frequent way—
They little knew what man he was!

The pointed beard, the courteous mien,
The equal port to high and low,
All this they saw, or might have seen,
But not the light behind the brow!

The doublet's modest gray or brown,

The slender sword-hilt's plain device, What sign had these for prince or clown? Few turned, or none, to scan him twice.

Yet it was the king of England's kings!
The rest, with all their pomps and trains,
Are moldered, half-remembered things-
'T is he alone that lives and reigns!
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

-The Century, August, 1890.

THE GIFT OF THE SEA.

THE dead child lay in the shroud,

And the widow watched beside;

And her mother slept and the channel swept The gale in the teeth of the tide.

But the widow laughed at all.

"I have lost my man in the sea,

And the child is dead. Be still," she said; "What more can ye do to me?"

And the widow watched the dead,
And the candle guttered low
And she tried to sing the passing song
That bids the poor soul go.

And "Mary take you now," she sang,
"That lay against my heart,"
And "Mary smooth your crib to-night;"
But she could not say, "depart."

Then came a cry from the sea,

But the storm lay thick on the glass, And "Heard ye nothing, mother," she said; "T is the child that waits to pass."

And the nodding mother sighed:
"'T is a lambing ewe in the whin;
For why should the christened soul cry out
That never knew of sin?"

Oh, feet I have held in my hand!

Oh, hands at my heart to catch! How can they know the road to go, And how can they lift the latch?

They laid a sheet to the door,

With the little quilt atop,

That it might not hurt from the cold or dirt; But the crying would not stop.

The widow lifted the latch

And strained her eyes to see;

And opened the door on the bitter shore
To let the soul go free.

There was neither glimmer nor ghost;
There was neither spirit nor spark,

And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said; "'T is crying for me in the dark.”

And the nodding mother sighed :

""T is sorrow makes ye dull; Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern, Or the wail of the wind-blown gull?"

"The terns are blown inland,

The gray gull follows the plow;

'T was never a bird the voice I heard;

Oh, mother, I hear it now!"

"Lie still, dear lamb, lie still;

The child is safe from harm.

'Tis the ache in your breast that breaks your rest,

And the feel of an empty arm."

She put her mother aside;

"In Mary's name let be!

For the peace of my soul I must go," she said; And she went to the calling sea.

In the heel of the wind-bit pier,

Where the twisted weed was piled,

She came to the life she had missed by an hour, For she came to a little child.

She laid it into her breast

And back to her mother she came;

But it could not feed and it would not heed, Tho' she gave it her own child's name.

And the dead child dripped on her breast, And her own in the shroud lay stark; And "God forgive us, Mother," she said, "We let it die in the dark."

-RUDYARD KIPLING. -The Independent, July 24, 1890.

NOCTURNE.

TREES and the menace of night;
Then the long, lonely, leaden mere
Backed by the desolate fell

As by a spectral battlement; and then
Low brooding, impenetrating all,

A vast, gray, listless, inexpressive sky
Where no live star can have so much as shot
Since life and death were one.

Hist! in the trees full of night!

Is it the hurry of the rain?

Or a noise of a drive of the dead

Streaming before the irresistable Will

Through the strange dust of this debatable land,

Between their place and ours?

Oft hast thou borne up under

Onset of storming wind and shot of hail;
And once a sword-lunge of assailant thunder
Slashed down thy barken mail.

Old age, disease, and battle

Have scathed and crooked and crippled all thy form;
And thy Briarean bare arms clash and rattle,
Tost in the wintry storm.

I seem to feel thee shiver,

As on thy nakedness hangs rags of snow: May charitable Spring, the gracious giver, O'er thee her mantle throw!

She will; and sunshine spilling From blue skies thou again shalt drink as wine, And feel afresh the rush of young blood thrilling Through that old heart of thine.

For in the season duly

Each year there rises youth's perennial power
Within thee, and thou then rejoicest newly
In robes of leaf and flower.

Aye, though thy years are many, And sorrows heavy, yet from winter's gloom Thou issuest, with the young trees, glad as any, As quick of green and bloom.

The bluebird's warble mellow

Returns like memory and calls thy name,
And, as first love, the oriole's plumage yellow
Burns through thy shade like flame.

Thou quiver'st in the sunny

June mornings to the welcoming of song, And bees about their business of the honey Whisper thee all day long.

Thus thou art blest and blessestThy grace of blossoms fruiting into gold; And thus, in touch with nature, thou possessest The art of growing old. COATES KINNEY. -Harper's Magazine, August, 1890.

TO A POET IN EXILE.

"I CANNOT sing!" the grieving heart-harp sighed ; "The breeze that touched me lives beyond the foam:"

A rough wind struck it, and its voice replied
In sweeter music than it made at home.

O Sorrow, Sister Sorrow, thou dost give
A richer tone to poets when they cross,
To seek Eurydice, from where joys live,
And make them godlike through thy gift of loss.
MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN.

-Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1890.

A MESSAGE.

How little the left hand knoweth

The deeds that are done by the right, How little the night time showeth

Its sorrowful shades to the light! How few of the hearts that are broken

Betray to the breaker their grief;

How many harsh words that are spoken
Are the crushed soul's only relief!

Alas! for the childlike gladness
We never may know again;

And alas, and alas, for the sadness

That broods like a spirit of pain!

Like some spirit of pain, that will hover

Still nearer when sunlight is fled,
Until youth, and youth's last changeful lover
Grow old, and grow cold as the dead!

It is strange that the hands that might lead us
To heaven, refuse us their hold;
That the dear lips that whisper "God speed us,”
Are the lips that are first to grow cold!
But love, we are nearer the dawning,

Just there is the heavenly light,

And how little the glorious morning
Knows the sorrowful shades of the night!
LOLA MARSHALL DEAN.

-Atlanta Constitution.

OUT OF THE SOUTH.

A MIGRANT SOng-bird I,

Out of the blue, between the sea and the sky, Landward blown on bright, untiring wings; Out of the South I fly,

Urged by some vague strange force of Destiny,
To where the young wheat springs,

And the maize begins to grow,
And the clover fields to blow.

I have sought,

In far wild groves below the tropic line, To lose old memories of this land of mine;

I have fought

This vague, mysterious power that flings me forth into the North,

But all in vain. When flutes of April blow
The immemorial longing lures me, and I go.

I go, I go,

The sky above, the sea below, And I know not by what sense I keep my way, Slow winnowing the ether night and day; Yet ever to the same green, fragrant maplegrove, Where I shall swing and sing beside my love, Some irresistible impulse bears me on, Through starry dusks and rosy mists of dawn, And flames of noon and purple films of rain; And the strain

Of mighty winds hurled roaring back and forth, Between the caverns of the reeling earth, Cannot bewilder me.

I know that I shall see,

Just at the appointed time the dogwood blow, And hear the willows rustle and the mill stream flow.

The very bough that best

Shall hold a perfect nest

Now bursts its buds and spills its keen perfume;
And the violets are in bloom,

Beside the bowlder, lichen grown and gray,
Where I shall perch and pipe,
Till the dewberries are ripe,

And our brood has flown away,

And the empty nest swings high Between the flowing tides of grass and the dreamy violet sky.

I come, I come!

Bloom, O cherry, peach and plum!

Bubble brook, and rustle corn and rye!

Falter not, O Nature, nor will I.

Give me thy flower and fruit,
And I'll blow for thee my flute;

I'll blow for thee my flute so sweet and clear,
This year,

Next year,

And many and many a blooming coming year,
Till this strange force

No more aloft shall guide me in my course,
High over weltering billows and dark woods,
Over Mississippi's looped and tangled floods,
Over the hills of Tennessee,
And old Kentucky's greenery,

In sun, in night, in clouds, and forth

Out of the South into the North,

To the spot where first the ancestral nest was

swung,

Where first the ancestral song was sung,

Whose shadowy strains still ravish me
With immemorial melody.

MAURICE THOMPSON.

-The Independent, August 7, 1890.

'TIS HOME WHERE'ER OUR FLAG IS.

'Tis home where'er our flag is,
Dear hearts remember that;

You may be at Pekin, Paris,

Madrid or Ararat;

But whereso'er waves that fair,

That bonnie banner blue,

With stars bedight, with stripes so bright,
There's home, sweet home, for you.

Sweet home where'er our flag is,
Honor 'neath its stars,

If waved from foreign crag 'tis,

That foreign crag is ours!
Columbia's dower gives peerless power
To guard her children true;
And wheresoe'er our colors flare,
There's home for me and you.

OLIVE LOGAN.

-The Home Magazine, August, 1890.

JEFFERY.

NOTES.

Some very singular mental experiences have fallen to Mrs. Jeffery's lot. One is as follows: She had almost entirely written in prose, though greatly desiring and often attempting to express her thoughts in verse, until one night in 1875 when she thought herself dying-while in great suffering-she composed "Sister Viatoe." Her mind worked so clearly that she went over and over each verse while lying on her bed of pain, and a few days after got it on paper so she could preserve it, since which time she has rarely written in prose, everything coming to her persistently in rhythmical measure and rhyme, sometimes even her letters taking this form, without premeditation. In her "Sister Viatoe" her sister was the "patient watcher" referred to. It was published in the Chicago Tribune immediately, and quite widely copied, though often without credit given to her name. Her exquisite "Blight and Bloom" was first printed several years ago in the Alliance. Thence it was copied into "The Christian Life" department of the Advance, with correct title, signature and credit. After this it was, by actual count, copied into more than one hundred papers and magazines, giving no credit whatever, until it drifted at length into the Evangelical Magazine, to which it has ever since been wrongfully credited. It has also been made into an illustrated holiday book by a southern publishing company, but without signature.

GILES. The poet referred to in "Oh, ye Beautiful Hills of Frankfort," is Robert Burns Wilson.

MITCHELL. Walter Mitchell was born at Nantucket, Mass., January 22, 1826. He was graduated at Harvard College in the class of 1846; entered the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1858; was settled at Stamford, Conn., in the same year; and in 1880 was rector of Trinity Church, Rutland, Vt. He is the author of "Bryan Maurice," a novel, also of a poem delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard, in 1875. His "Tacking Ship" is remarkable for the nautical accuracy of the description. It is as true to life as any part of the "Shipwreck" of Falconer, while it surpasses that once famous poem in graphic power and freedom of style. E. S.

HIGGINSON. Mary Thacher Higginson is the wife of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (vide THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY, vol. II, p 64), "Gifts" was published in Scribner's Magazine for March, 1880, and with the exception of a single sonnet published in St. Nicholas makes up the total of her published poetry.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

WORKS CONSULTED IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS NUMBER OF "THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY."

DOBSON, AUSTIN. Vignettes in Rhyme and Other Verses. New York: White, Stokes & Allen, 1886, 12mo, pp xx and 278.

IBID. At the Sign of the Lyre. New York: White, Stokes & Allen, 1886. 12mo, pp ix and 239.

WILSON, ROBERT BURNS. Life and Love. Poems. New York: Cassell & Company, 1887. 12mo, pp ix and 268.

SPALDING, SUSAN MAR. Winter Roses. Philadelphia: A. Edward Newton & Co., 1888. 16mo, pp 24.

IBID. Miscellaneous Poems.

THAYER, STEPHEN HENRY. Songs of Sleepy Hollow and Other Poems. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1886. 12mo, pp x and 187.

IBID. Miscellaneous Poems.

BUTTERWORTH, HEZEKIAH. Poems for Christmas, Easter and New Year's. Illustrated. Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1885. 8vo, pp xi and 153.

IBID. Ballads and Stories for Readings, with Musical Accompaniments. Cincinnati: The John Church Co., 1886. 12mo, pp 112.

IBID. Miscellaneous Poems.

ARCHIBALD, MRS. GEORGE. Miscellaneous Poems. WILSON, MRS. E. V. Miscellaneous Poems.

JEFFERY, MRS. ISADORE GILBERT. Miscellaneous Poems.

PANGBORN, FREDERIC WERDEN. Miscellaneous Poems.

GILES, ELLA A. Miscellaneous Poems.

GRAVES, ALFRED PERCIVAL. Father O'Flynn and Other Irish Lyrics. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1889. 12mo, pp 128.

IBID. Miscellaneous Poems.

NEWSAM, WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT. Miscellaneous Poems.

HOLLAND, JOSIAH GILBERT. Complete Poetical Writings. Illustrated. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1885. 8vo, pp xi and 513.

MCCOURT, DAVID WILLIAM. Miscellaneous Poems. SWEET, EMELIE TRACY Y. Miscellaneous Poems. HAMILTON, ANNA J. Miscellaneous Poems. BOYESEN, HJALMAR HJORTH. Idyls of Norway and Other Poems. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1882. 12mo, pp vii and 185.

WOOLFORD, BESSIE H. Miscellaneous Poems. WETHERALD, AGNES ETHELYN. Miscellaneous

Poems.

ROSSETTI, CHRISTINA G. Complete Poems. Household edition. Boston: Roberts Bros. 12 mo. IBID. Time Flies, a Reading Diary. Boston: Roberts Bros.

IBID. Miscellaneous Poems.