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JOHN PARKER.

BORN: ENGLAND, JAN. 17, 1822.

IN 1864 Mr. Parker settled in Pennsylvania at Mahanoy City. He there edited the Anthracite Monitor, the organ of the miner's and laborer's association of Pennsylvania. In 1872 he bought the Mahanoy Valley Record, which he

published as a weekly paper until 1877, when it was changed into a tri-weekly, of which he is still the sole publisher and proprietor. Mr. Parker has taken an active part in all labor movements, and served four years in the Pennsylvania senate, from 1878 to 1882.

HOLD UP YOUR HEAD. Hold up your head! what need to cower? Hold up your face to view the sun; For tho' your worldly wealth be poor,

You've got the glorious form of man. Let that not bend, but proud and high, Erect your head toward the sky. Hold up your head! that gaudy thing

With all its gorgeous pomp and show;
That bears the tarnished name of king;
To which base slaves bow down so low.
Without the toys that gild it now,
Is only flesh and blood like you.

Hold up your head! 'tis no disgrace
To show a visage marked with toil;
Far better sweat-drops wet thy face

Than live by rapine proud or guile. Thou'rt useful to the world, and thou Can'st well afford to lift thy brow. Hold up your head!- move boldly on, To right or left-turn not aside; Keep honor's beauteous path and shun The devious ways of worldly pride; Then those who may thy actions scan Will say: Behold an honest man!"

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FRIENDSHIP.

When worldly sorrows o'er us throw
Their lowering clouds so dark and drear;

How sweet it is to feel to know,

That friendly hearts are beating near,

That friendly smiles, amid the gloom,
Shines forth the darkness to illume.

How sweet to know that other tears

Are mixed with ours-that other eyes

Are moist with sympathetic cares;

That friendly breast will heave with sighs When ours pulsate with pain or grief, And share the load or give relief. Friendship! thy genial smile doth throw

A beauteous radiance o'er life's path; Makes pleasures greater, lightens woe, And gilds the dreary hour of death With heavenly beams that softly shed Their light around our dying bed.

THE FAIRIES.

In the silvery moonlight

Sporting merrily,

Dancing on the green sward 'Neath the old oak tree; Little, laughing fairies,

Ever blithe and gay,
Reveling through the midnight
Fritter life away.

Drinking from the dewdrops
That hang upon the flowers;
Swinging on the green leaves,
In the shady bowers;
And when smiling morning
Sends the night away,
Deep among the rose leaves,
Sleeping through the day.
Happy, sportive creatures,

Free from every care;
Life to them is joyousness,
Ever bright and fair.
Oh, to be a fairy!

Frolicksome and gay,
Underneath the moonbeams
Dancing life away.

JESSIE LOVE.

Oh, sweet art thou my Jessie Love,
As flowers that grow in May;
As birds that sing at early dawn
Upon the pearly spray:

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LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

779

EMILY W. PEAKES.

BORN: HARMONY, ME., DEC. 1, 1847. THIS lady graduated in 1874 from Westbrook seminary. She follows the profession of school teaching, in which she has always been

EMILY W. PEAKES.

very successful. Personally Miss Peakes is of a very amiable and pleasing disposition. She is now a teacher of literature in the high schools of Terre Haute.

IN SCHOOL-A PERFUME.

I close my eyes, and the lilac's perfume
Has borne me away from this crowded room.
Under northern skies where the flowers are
late

And this plumy branch for the June must wait.

A farm-house stands from the road aloof,
With the mountain-ash against its roof.
There's bridge in front that crosses a brook
Where the spotted trout hides away from the
hook;

And a winding road, with a double ridge
Of grass, comes down the hill to the bridge.
Close by the door twine lilac-trees
Breathe a sweet good-morning to every breeze.
A group of children with happy look
Are lingering here with basket and book.

Why do they wait? There's one little creature
Wants a lilac-flower to give to the teacher;
She must have the very highest one
That no one can reach- and what's to be
done?

For the longest arm comes short of the prize
That bends and beckons before her eyes;
But she saw papa coming up through the
clover,

A strong, tall man; see! he lifts her over
The heads of the group that round him stand
And she breaks the branch with her chubby
hand.

What was I saying?- I open my eyes;
Why, I am the teacher supposed to be wise;

One instant ago 'twas a six-year-old

Who smelled of the lilac, and my father's

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hold

Was strong around me; the years and death Were swept away by the lilac's breath.

MRS. N. ELVIRA NELSON.
BORN ABOUT 1848.

IN 1883 Mrs. Nelson published in conjunction with her sister, Mrs. Sarah King-Marine, The Garland, a little volume of poems of superior merit and talent. At the age of twenty-one this lady was married to George Nelson, who served in the union army; and with whom she now resides, with a splendid family of two sons and one daughter.

A REPLY.

AFTER THE WEDDING
Be still my heart - be still and think,
And hush this fruitless sighing;
While from the past of life I drink,
The present is replying;

Ten weary years have swept away
Since on that fatal morning
The sunshine seemed to pause and play,
Without a shade of warning.

Ten years! alas, those weary years
Were full of love's repining!

Full of the anguish and the tears
That through my heart are twining.
What were the orange blossoms sweet
Around the bridal altar?
What the gay trappings all replete,
That bade my spirit falter?
Then the tall and handsome man -
My graceful, grand ideal-
My hero could my heart command,
But now the sad, sad real!
Alas! things are not what they seem,
Despite their golden glimmer;
All my fancies were a dream,

I've seen their dying shimmer.

LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

780

Ah, yes, could I have seen him die,

My heart would cease its weeping;

Not even one rebellious sigh

Should chide the grave's cold keeping.
For death brings back a fragrance sweet,
And leaves a friendly token;

Life lays my hopes beneath my feet,
And holds my idol broken.

Better to let the roses fade,

While yet their sweets are budding,

Than hide the wounds the thorns have made,

While grief the soul is flooding.

Better to watch the sun go down

Behind the amber ceiling,

Than wait till noon to feel his frown,
And smile to hide the feeling.

Yet I must smile, nor dare betray
The woeful ache of keeping
The pain concealed, that, day by day,
Would bathe my heart with weeping.
For ah, the world must never see
The coffin in my bosom;

I must smile at dead hopes mocking me
As though 'twere joy to lose them.
Ten years a bride, ten years a wife,
Ten years of vainly hoping.
And now a barren waste of life
On which my soul is groping.

1

I close the coffin with a prayer For thoughts are insurrection My murdered love is buried there, And waits no resurrection.

MAGGIE CALDWELL.

IN 1888 this lady published a little volume of poems entitled Bird Notes from the Mountains. Her poems have appeared in the periodical press, and have received complimentary notices.

MY LIFE.

Not a single ray of light

Shines into my lonely heart, My life has ever been a night Into which no sunbeams dart.

My past is a desert waste,

Where not a flower blooms,
Over which my spirit hastes
Into a land of darker gloom.

The future! ah! what is my future?
A wild Plutonian way
Where I alone must wander

In this dark and cheerless day.

TO A FRIEND.

On memory's golden harp
I shall try to touch a string,
And wake within your heart,
Music that will forever sing;

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THE CENTURY PLANT.
On the top of the mountain,
By the brink of the fountain,
I keep record of ages gone by.
Around the graves of the dead
I oft stretched my head,
And can tell every year
Of their life till they die.
In old Adam's race

I have smiled on his face,

And I am numbered in the
Late generation;

Yet few do me know,

Though they oft speak my name, And yet I create a sensation.

I'm old and I'm rare,

Then I am young, and then fair, Yet seldom I young do appear. Then my bloom it goes down With my youth to the ground, Yet on earth 1 shall ever be here.

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