COLONEL GEO. W. WARDER.

BORN: RICHMOND, MO.

WHEN but a boy in years Mr Warder taught school, studied law, and was a practicing attorney at Chillicothe, Mo. He is a lawyer, a business man, a financier, a scholar, and a

COLONEL GEO. W. WARDER. poet. Mr. Warder has issued three volumes of verse, which have attracted considerable attention, and established for the author an enviable reputation; in 1873 appeared Poetic Writings or College Poems; in 1874 Eden Dell or Love's Wanderings; and his third volume, a collection of his finest poems, entitled Utopian Dreams and Lotus Leaves, was issued from the London press in 1885. Since his residence in Kansas City, Col. Warder has attained a position of prominence and influence in the community. He is president of the Mining Exchange, a director in the Exposition Association, the Warder Grand Opera House, Newsboys Home, and is connected with many enterprises and charitable institutions.

WOMAN.

Methinks, o'er all the realms of space,
Creative hand ne'er meant to trace

A nobler form, or fairer face,
With brighter charm, or sweeter grace,
Than woman, who was sent to cheer
Man in his lonely, hapless fate,
With kindness and affection's tear,
And lead him to a higher state.
Her charming face and trusting heart
Wakes in his breast heroic flame;
For her he toils by strength and art,
To carve his way to wealth and fame.
He tills the soil, and sails the fleet,
Subdues the earth, explores its wilds,
To lay his treasures at her feet,

For her approving love and smiles.
In every land where women stand
In loving beauty by man's side,
His rudeness turns to manners bland,
And truth and honor in his pride.
First at the cradle and the grave,

With swelling heart and anxious breath,
She ope's the eyes of great and brave,
And shuts them in the glare of death.
Then lordly man, that scoffs at fear,

At your own hearth, or where ye roam, Strive with true love to bless and cheer This angel of our earthly home.

MEMORY AND IMAGINATION. There's a world within as a world without, And the mighty depths of the human soul Is a boundless sea where the billows roll To the zephyr's sigh, and the thunder's shout; Where voices come from the sobbing years Like watching stars in their dreamy spheres, And the soul, like earth in its mystic flight, Is half in shadow and half in light. Thou mighty magicians to stir the heart To its silent depths with thy voice of tears, Pouring its pathos of tremulous fears, Till the troubled sea of the soul will start, And feeling and passion like billows roll From the sighing heart to the sobbing soul; Eyes dreamy and blue as the tranquil sea; Face beaming and changeful, pleasing and fair;

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Voice sad and sweet as a Magdalen's prayer To a pardoning Christ when He set her free. Thy genius, purpose and mission grand Teaches men to feel and their souls expand, That mercy may blend with her loving eyes, The joys of earth with the dreams of the skies.

THY FACE IS FAIR AND LOVELY.

Thy face is fair and lovely,

Thine eyes are softly blue,

And who could help but love thee,
Who knows thy heart so true.

Who knows the wealth and depth of love
That in thy bosom glows,

The purity like heaven above,
That from thy spirit flows.

Thy soul looks through the doors of sight,
And beams from out thine eye
With golden light, both pure and bright,
As angels passing by.

And once I gazed into those eyes

That beam with heavenly thought,
And felt the ties of love I prize,
Still nearer to me brought.
That hour I never shall forget,
But memory will retain it,
And time will only deeper set

That diamond gem within it.

Then fleeting time did plume her wing,
And dip her feet in pleasure,

And from the streams of bliss did bring

Us gladness without measure.

The zephyrs sang unto the sea,

The golden stars were beaming, While hope, like bird on pinions free, Her sweetest dream was dreaming. Endymion on the moonlit hills

Ne'er bathed in Cynthia's smiling, And felt the sweet enrapturing thrills, As in that hour's beguiling.

MARY ANDERSON.

Interpreter of truth and art,

With regal form and queenly grace?
A matchless poem is thy face,
Where glowing thoughts of beauty start
Like heart that speaketh unto heart.
What majesty of gentle truth

Is thy sweet charm of womanhood;
So winning, fair, and nobly good,
Like genius in its mystic youth,
A peerless thing of joy and truth.
Bright empress of a fairer land

Than czar, or king, or magnates rule,
Where beauty, heart and truth's at school,

And in angelic livery stand,
Like sunlit isles in summer land.
Thou standest proudly and alone

In art, expression, form and grace,
And changing beauties of thy face,
And sweetness of thy voice and tone,
Like sceptred genius on a throne.
Then fair as love and sweet as bliss,
Press on and win the world's applause,
Nor in thy charming splendor pause
Till deathless fame thy brow shall kiss,
And heaven shall bring eternal bliss.

SADDEST THOUGHTS MAKE SWEETEST
SONG.

When the twilight shades are falling
And the even-tide is near,
Comes the voice of memory calling,
Soft as falling of a tear;

And from shadows dim and fleeting
Come the saddest songs and greeting;
Yet the sweetest that I hear.
And I dream the olden dreaming

In the gloaming by the way,
And life's rosy-tinted gleaming
Seems to crown the closing day;
And my heart and brain and being
Wrapt in visions I am seeing,
Sad, yet brightest that I may!

O! our saddest thoughts are sweetest!
For they span a broader sea,
Soaring eagle-winged and fleetest
O'er the world of memory.

Hope crowned, heavenward and untiring,
To the good and loved aspiring,
They are calling unto thee.

Like the murmur of bright rivers
In the Islands of the Blest,
Where the solemn music quivers

Like a birdling in its nest,
Come the smiles of those who love us
From the far-off heavens above us,
And our saddest songs are best.

KISS OUR DARLING AND COME AWAY.

EXTRACT.

Dead! Our darling is dead, dear wife,
His angel spirit has heavenward fled;
His little feet will no longer tread
The rugged paths of this sorrowing life.
Kiss his forehead of marble clay,
Kiss our darling and come away.
Fair was his lovely form, dear wife,
Bright and sunny his cherub face;
See what a dimple the angels did trace,
When they kissed him first on the shores of

life.

Kiss him again, for only to-day

Can you kiss our darling, and come away.

REV. JEREMIAH E. RANKIN.

BORN: THORNTON, N. H. GRADUATING at Andover theological seminary in 1854, Mr. Rankin has since preached in Potsdam, N. Y., St. Albans, Vt., Lowell and Charleston, Mass., and for thirteen years has been pastor of the First Congregational

REV. JEREMIAH EAMS RANKIN.

church of Washington, D. C., where he still labors. The Rev. Rankin is called the Radical Poet Preacher of the Capital; he has a clear and sympathetic voice, and has become very popular. He has published numerous hymns, poems and sermons. A volume entitled Subduing Kingdoms, and other Sermons, appeared in 1882; and in 1889 appeared Broken Cadences, a poem in three parts.

TEARS.

The tears which here are flowing

In this dark world below,

At night an angel bears them

Above earth's hills of snow.

It is so far to Heaven,

And tears so heavy be, That many a tear is dropping Back to the deep, deep sea. But, when to earth descending,

A gathered teardrop goes, It blooms a thing of beauty, A snow-white lily blows.

Perhaps a lily blossoms

On earth there blooms a flower,

As I from home an exile,

Have swept this twilight hour.

ABOON THE STARS.

O snawie feet, sae veined wi' blue,
O ankles limp an' roun',

Wi greetin' een, I've sought for you,
All up the warl an' doun.

Aboon the stars? I ken, I ken,

What service do they there? Does Heav'n itsel' need little men, To make its mansions fair?

Do little feet rin in an' oot?

Is bairnheid laughter heard?
Ah! that's the Heav'n me to suit,
I catch the sweet, sweet word.
An' sal I meet my bairn aboon?
My bonnie, wee, wee bairn?
Hoo aft, at night, I sit an' croon,
Sae piercin' is the airn!

An' mithers may be mithers there,
An' bairns still bairns may be,
Wi' glowin' cheek, an' flowin' hair,
An' childhood ecstasy?

At least, until I better ken,

I'll dream the pleasant thought; Nor think our bairns grow up to men, An' sae, alas, are not!

BROKEN CADENCES.

EXTRACT.

My childhood sense and vision

Of things elysian,

How can I ever lose? For all things that I see Are more to me,

If wet with life's fresh morning dews: The light they keep, in which at first They on my being burst.

For, not a paltry thing of years,

Whose sense grows dim and vision blears, Can childhood be,

A transient ecstasy;

It is God's kingdom, where

He keeps all things unfolding fair; Where every sight

Perennial yields a fresh delight;

The colors cannot fade
His hand upon them laid,
Have we the sense divine,
To know his touch and sign.

The childhood spirit still shall find
The childhood mind.

If but life's burdens we unbind,

Ourselves escape from brooding cares, If we but offer childhood's prayers, The old time sights and sounds Will burst their upland bounds,

And flood our being unawares: