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JOHN WILLIAM EVERETT.

BORN: CEDAR GROVE, LA., DEC. 13, 1869. Ix his youth his parents removed their place of abode several times, finally settling in Lake Charles, La. when the subject of this sketch was sixteen years of ago. His father is editor of The American in that town, and young Everett also resides there. While still

JOHN WILLIAM EVERETT.

in the university at Waco, Texas, he contributed several poems to the local press. He next attended the Mississippi college at Clinton, where he continued his studies as a theological student, a profession he intends to follow. Besides his poetic writings, he has contributed prose to various publications; and he has published a musical composition.

REFLECTIONS.

ON THE BANKS OF THE AMITE RIVER. Tis late; the sun is sinking in the west; The wind moans lonesome through the

waving trees;

The twit ring birds have hushed to seek their

rest;

The swallow's wing beats homeward on the

breeze.

The river moans and ripples as it flows;
The moon is rising now upon the scene;
The stars are stealing slowly from their close,
And adding pleasure to the thought serene.

Upon this bank I have stood in days gone by; In youth's bright, happy hours I've wandered here,

With one who now is sleeping silently

Beneath the sod, whose voice I'll never hear!

Ah, yes! Upon this bank of rocks and sand, Beneath the shady trees that bow above, I've kissed her cheeks, and pressed her little hand,

And spoke to her in tender words of love. How often has she knelt to write her name Upon the ground upon the river's strand, And stood and watched the wavelets as they

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Was built by some old chieftain, who,

With his Red Men,
Made his bed then,

Upon the banks of Calcasieu !

Those Indian men

No doubt have been Often on our river's sheen — The rough canoe

And arrow true,

Borne on our lovely Calcasieu.

But what, unseen, The mirrored sheen, Breaks into myriad ripples, bright? The zephyrs stir

I think of her,

Who passed away into the night!

The pine's weird voice,
That low, sweet noise,

It makes me sad, yet I rejoice!
The wild winds swell
And break the spell-

I rise to go; sweet scene, farewell!

MAMIE.

My little cousin Mamie,

Who lives in Cedar Grove, Is the sweetest little creature I e'er shall see or love.

She's five-year-old or over,

And cute as she can be;
I'll tell you something funny
She said one day to me.
She saw a mole upon me,

And then she said..I 'spec'
I know something you've got
A big corn on your neck?"
One day she saw the old hen

With a topknot, and she said:

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Look, Auntie, at that chicken With a whatnot on her head." One morning she awakened

And asked when it was light, ..Had Dod pulled back the turtains An' shut the stars from sight?"

ROBERT F. WARREN.

BORN: CERULEAN SPRINGS, KY., FEB. 14, 1869. MR. WARREN now lives in Belleview, Ky., clerking in a dry goods store. He is a great lover of poetry and occasionally writes short poems, more for recreation than fame.

OUR PILGRIMAGE.

We are marching to that lovely land,
Where saints are in power-children com-
mand;

Our feet are ever turned that way
To lead us from this mortal fray.
Prestige of glory doth attract our sight,

We are marching with the just, the right, Our swift thought is our guide;

We're walking with Jesus, side by side. Lovely attractions have gone before;

The ones that we love, the ones we adore, Fond recollections to them doth fly;

--

We'll join them soon; yes, by and by. "Tis the vision of Future that makes us true, And leads us upward from this land of dew; Slowly we march to the heavenly portal Where all is truth, light, immortal.

THE ORPHAN GIRL.
Out upon the street in the cold,
Goes our little wanderer, -
Lately from the dusty mold-
The goods box yonder.
Her pitiful cries are heard

All down Main street,

And to the poor girl comes not a word
From those that she meets.

The stout, the wealthy, the great,

They all pass her by;

Nor will those of her own state
Administer to her wailing sigh.

O think of the poor orphan girl!
Her age is scarcely seven, --

Cast out in this dark world

With naught to shelter her but heaven.

Her lot, oh it must be drear

For one so delicate and small

To stand and not shed a tear

As she watches the snowflakes fall.

What will be her fate?

Ah, I readily see:

She will open the golden gate

And quickly hide from thee.

LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON

BORN: NEW YORK CITY, OCT. 7, 1857. EDUCATED at Pennington seminary, New Jersey and university of the city of New York,he was married in 1878 to Sue Rockhill, daughter of Capt. Z. Rockhill of New Jersey. For past eight years has been on the editorial staff of New York Tribune. Mr. Johnson has lectured frequently and made many other public addresses. He is the author of several books

WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON.

and scores of poems which have had wide circulation in the periodical press of America and England. In person he is slightly under average size, but robust and athletic in a | notable degree, with hair and eyes nearly black. Mr. Johnson in winter lives in Brooklyn, N. Y., and in summer divides his time between mountains and sea-shore.

THE VICTOR.

In the old world, when I was dead,
I followed where my fortune led;
O tyrant Fate!

All senseless, soulless, save to be
Slave of capricious destiny.

O cruel tyrant Fate!

Then dawned my birthday, and to life I sprang, and unto doomful strife;

O foeman Fate!

And fought my way, ere set of sun,

To this new world, the victory won. O hated foeman Fate!

Now all is sense, and life, and love, And footsteps unrestrained rove;

O baffled Fate!

And where I lead, Fate follows me, Myself and lord of destiny.

O baffled, vanquished fate!

NAMES.

'Neath the Natural Bridge's dizzy arch A youth once carved his name;

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And when above the yawning chasm, He hung, as if with life's last spasm, He struck his knife into the flint, Dreaming each rude and ragged dint Through the coming years' unceasing march Would herald his deathless fame.

But the name was only read

By eagles in their flight,

And within the year the lichens grew

And buried it out of sight.

In careless leisure my name I trace
On a perishable page;

And I know the ink may quickly fade,
Or the leaf be torn, or the book mislaid,
Or fire may burn, or flood despoil -
In a thousand ways my pen's poor toil
May come to naught, and a vacant place
Alone wait the coming age.

But my name, I trust, shall live,
Safe kept in memory's shrine;
Full many a year after ruthless fate
Shall have faded this fleeting line.

AUTUMN.

The aster glows the falling leaves beneath, The golden rod gleams by the hedgerow brown,

As tho' the dying summer in the frost king's teeth

Had hurled her gauntlet down.

So when the shades of solemn silence sink Upon us, and we reach life's latest breath, The soul exultant bids, e'en on the grave's black brink,

Defiance unto death!

We perish not. The mounting spirit towers
In conscious immortality sublime,
And gains beyond death's feeble, fleeting,
winter hours

Eternal summer time.

IN BOHEMIA.

I am rich; who says me nay? I have bread to eat each day, Water from the mountain rill, Woman's lips to kiss at will,

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I am rich; who says me nay?
Friends have I in long array
Sun, and rain, and cloud and dew,
Fields of green and skies of blue;
Pictures drawn by nature's hand;
Bocks the soul may understand,
And a life-long holiday ---

I am rich; who says me nay?

I am rich; who says me nay?
Whom have I to envy pray?
Crown encumbered king? or sage
Poring o'er the midnight page?
Midas starving with his gold?
Better far, a thousand fold,
Is Bohemia than Cathay?

I am rich; who says me nay?
ENVOY.

Prince, thy bounty I decline!
Quaff with me this rustic wine!
Equals thou and I to-day-
I am rich; who says me nay?

--

BOOKS AND BINDINGS.
On my study shelves they stand,
Well-known all to eye and hand,
Bound in gorgeous cloth of gold,
In morocco rich and old,

Some in paper, plain and cheap,
Some in muslin, calf and sheep;
Volumes great and volumes small
Ranged along my study wall;
But their contents are past finding
By the size or by the binding.

There is one with gold agleam,
Like the Sangreal in a dream,
Back and boards in every part
Triumph of the binder's art;
Costing more, 't is well believed,
Then the author e'er received.
But its contents? Idle tales,
Flapping of a shallop's sails!
In the treasury of learning
Scarcely worth a penny's turning.

Here's a tome in paper plain,

Soiled and torn and marred with stain,
Cowering from each statelier book
In the darkest, dustiest nook.
Take it down, and lo! each page
Breathes the wisdom of a sage!
Weighed a thousand times in gold,
Half its worth would not be told,
For all truth of ancient story
Crowns each line with deathless glory.
On my study shelves they stand;
But my study walls expand,

As mind's pinions are unfurled,
Till they compass all the world.
Endless files go marching by,
Men of lowly rank amd high,
Some in broadcloth, gem-adorned,
Some in homespun, fortune-scorned;
But God's scales that all are weighed in
Heed not what each man's arrayed in.

THE STONES OF MANHATTAN.

I tread the stones of Manhattan; I, who have journeyed far

From the meadow-sward and the moss bank, and the streamlet's pebbly bar;

I, who have wandered hither, allured by the tales they told

Of how the stones of Manhattan were reeking with ruddy gold.

I tread the stones of Manhattan, the stones that are hard to my feet,

As hard as the hearts around me, as hard as the faces I meet.

Hot is their breath in summer, with fever of selfish greed,

Cold is their touch in winter, as hearts to the

hand of need.

My heel strikes fire from the flint, but the spark is dead ere it burns,-

Strikes fire in my angry striding, but is bruised by the stone it spurns,And echo scorns with a stony voice the cry of a soul's despair

Breathed out on the thunderous throbbings of the city's desert air.

Oh! faithless stones of Manhattan, that tempted my boyish feet

Away from the clover-meadow, from the windWoven waves of wheat!

I thought ye a golden highway; I find ye the path of shame,

Where souls are sold for silver, and gold is the

price of fame!

But my weary feet must tread ye, as slaves on

the quarry floor,

And my aching brain must suffer your piti

less uproar,

Till the raving tide shall sweep above, and careless feet shall tread

On the fatal stones of Manhattan, over my dreamless bed!

POETS UNKNOWN TO FAME. Who questions if a brazen trumpet sound, Or silver clarion, or pipe of reed, When echoes linger 'mid the Switzer hills? Who seeks the poet's name or native bound, So but his song be melody indeed, And his inspired word the spirit thrills?

LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

LOUIS N. CRILL, JR.

BORN: SPRAGUEVILLE, IOWA, JUNE 3, 1867. LOUIS engaged in the mercantile business in 1882, and is the proprietor of a general merchandise store in Richland, Dakota, where he now resides with his wife, whom he married in 1888. He has but recently commenced to court the muse, yet his writings have in a

LOUIS N. CRILL, JR.

comparatively short time appeared extensively in many prominent publications, including the New York Truth Seeker, Sturdy Oak, and the American Nonconformist. In person Mr. Crill is five feet ten inches in height, weighs 175 pounds, and has dark hair and eyes.

MOTHER'S ADVICE.
When you grow up, my darling boy,
To manhood, good and true,
You'll find your sister don't enjoy
The rights by justice due;
You'll find it true that custom gives,
To man the higher place;
That woman only strives, and lives
To perish in the race.

When you grow up, my darling boy,
Admit the truth so plain,
That woman's rights are to employ
The products of her brain;
To feast in banquet halls of fame,
Beside her brother, man;

To show the world in deed and name
That woman's in the van.

When you grow up, my darling boy,
Stand firm for truth and right;
Disdain the fact that mother's joy
Is tinged with one sad blight.
Endeavor with your strength sincere
To abrogate the laws

That make a woman's life appear

A slave to any cause.

When you grow up, my darling boy. In justice always scorn,

And ev'ry wrong try to destroy,

Until a good is born.

Remember that in future needs

Posterity may call

Upon the men whose earnest deeds

Gave equal rights to all.

BORDER ECHOES.

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Ripples of laughter will echo, in a valley of anguish and pain;

Carols of birds rent the air, when with sorrow the sky is aflame.

Nations are boasting in luxury, while its Sovereigns are living in need; Liberty sits on its pedal, while the millions in serfdom do bleed.

Musical strains are vibrating, while the notes of distress reek the air;

Sunshine is sending its blessing, and the shadows of trouble are there.

Great are the names of the wealthy, but humble the tiller of soil;

Pinioned are angels of fortune, but wingless the daughters of toil.

Gilded the rainbow of hope, that bows o'er a life of despair;

Sweet are the songs of the birds that warble in seasons of care.

Gay are the symbols of fashion, in a city of mis'ry and pain;

Grand the cathedrals of state, while the poor live in hovels of shame.

Rosy the tint of the sunset, that is domed in the sky of the west; Drifted away by the breezes are the clouds of dismay and distress.

Noble the man of the present, that is free from illusion and guile; Soothing the proffer of kindness, in an hour of misfortune and trial. Robed in the mantle of glory, is the goddess of justice and right; Chased by the light of the morning, is the darkness and gloom of the night. Onward humanity struggles, through the mist and the storm do they glide; Tossed on the waves of the ocean, and then drifted ashore by the tide.

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