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LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

IN MEMORIAM:

Death's blighting blast
Came cold and fast,
Engulfing in its gloom
Love, Worth and Youth,

But this soul of truth
Finds life beyond the tomb.
Immortal fame

Tilumes this name Now numbered with the dead; And clouds of woe,

Fair Mexico,

o'erhang thy chieftain's head. Reflect! Look back,

Proud Anahuac,

To the deed by Diaz done!
Each bitter strife

For the nation's life
Gave glory to her son!
And his noble wife,

When fear was rife, Devoutly Knelt in prayer; Each battle fought,

With anguish fraught,

Delfina's thoughts were there,

In the land above

Where peace and love

Abide with all the blest,

Zealous and true,

'Mid the chosen few,

God called her home to rest.

MEXICO'S NATIONAL ANTHEM. Bind, oh my country! thy brow with the olive Of peace, for Archangels thy future foretold; And heav'n decreed it when time was an infant The hand of Jehovah thy life would unfold. Should daring monarchs attempt to invade

thee,

Profaning thy soil with unhallowed tread,
Remember, dear country, that kind heaven
[dead!
gave thee
In each son a soldier, unconquered, though
CHO.-Mexican men, to the tocsin of war,

Make ready the charger and steel,
Let earth vibrate to its center and far
With the cannon's sonorous appeal!

In war's fiercest combats thou often hast seen
them,
[thy name,

Their hearts nerved with courage and love for
Braving death and destruction, as heroes,
serenely,
[fame.

Who seek, as their guerdon, the death-bed of
If all deeds and all exploits of glory,
Of thy brave sons in battle, were told,
How thy records would glow with the story
Stamped in letters of crimson and gold!
As the oak by the lightning is shattered
And hurled to the torrents below,
So discord, domestic, is banished
By thy Angel of Peace, Mexico!

No more shall the blood of thy children
Be shed in internecine strife,

Nor the steel by their hands be uplifted –
Save to guard thy fair honor and life.
The sword of Zempoala's great hero
Shall defend thee with vigorous blow;
And thy glorious, tri-colored banner
Shall sustain his strong arm 'gainst thy foe.
In war and in peace will this chieftain
Lead the Mexican standard to fame;
For he 'twas who circled with glory
And chaplets of laurel thy name!
War! war! without truce, to the invader
Who dares our land's honor to stain!
War! war! Let our country's flag redden
In the waves of the blood of the slain!
War! war! in the mountain-the valley,-
Let the loud-sounding cannon proclaim,
And the echoes, sonorous, resound it
In Union and Liberty's name!
Rather than yield in submission
And weaponless bend to the foe,

Let the blood of thy sons steep the meadows
And their footprints the glory work show!—
Let thy palaces, temples and towers

Be given to ashes and flame!

And their ruins alone bear this record:

Here Anahuac's heroes were slain!

If the war trump should call you to battle,
Iturbide's loved flag to uphold,—
Press forward, brave sons of Mexitli,
And forget not your heroes of old!
Let the enemy's ensigns be trampled:
Let them carpet the field of the dead!
Where your war-horses dash on in triumph,
By their riders to victory led!

When thy soldiers return to the hearthstone,
Wearing proudly the garlands of fame
That in battle, with honor, they wrested
Defending their country's fair name,
Their laurels, ensanguined, they part with,
Exchanged for the myrtle and rose,

While their fond wives and daughters rejoicing
Strew with jasmine the couch of repose.

He who in battle for country
Shall amid the fierce contest succumb,
Must obtain a rich chaplet of glory,
And of hero and soldier the torab.
Let the cross o'er the grave that's erected
Be the sword that he valiantly bore,
Enwrapped with Iguala's loved banner
And crowned with the laurels he wore.
Free country! thy children are plighted,
Their last breath for thee to exhale,

If Bellona's shrill trump should invoke them,
The enemy's hosts to assail-

For thee are the garlands of olive!
For them are the records of fame!
For thee is bright victory's laurel!
For them is a tomb and a name!

LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

BORN: CAMBRIDGE, MASS., FEB. 22, 1819. THIS poet, essayist and critic graduated at Harvard, and for more than twenty years was professor of belles-lettres in that college. In 1877 he was appointed minister of Spain, and

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. three years later he was transferred to the English court.

Mr. Lowell's best poems are: The Present Crisis, Sir Launfal, A Glance Behind the Curtain, Under the Willows, A Fable of Critics, Commemoration Ode, Longing and The Changeling. His chief prose works are: Among My Books, and My Study Windows.

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ALADDIN.

When I was a beggarly boy,
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,

But I had Aladdin's lamp;
When I could not sleep for cold,
I had fire enough in my brain,
And builded, with roofs of gold,

My beautiful castles in Spain!
Since then I have toiled day and night,

I have money and power good store, But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright, For the one that is mine no more;

Take. Fortune, whatever you choose.
You gave, and may snatch again;

I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose,
For I own no more castles in Spain!

LONGING.

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Of all the myriad moods of mind
That through the soul come thronging,
What one was e'er so dear, so kind,

So beautiful, as Longing?
The thing we long for, that we are
For one transcendent moment,
Before the present, poor and bare,
Can make its sneering comment.

Still through our paltry stir and strife
Glow down the wished ideal,
And Longing molds in clay what Life
Carves in the marble real.

To let the new life in, we know,

Desire must ope the portal; Perhaps the Longing to be so Helps make the soul immortal.

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EXTRACTS.

Earth's noblest thing, a woman perfected.

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own,

New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth;

They must upward still and onward who would keep abreast of truth.

But better far it is to speak

One simple word which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men.

The busy world shoves angrily aside
The man who stands with arms akimbo set
Until occasion tell him what to do,

And he who waits to have his task marked out
Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.

No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him; there is always work
And tools to work withal, for those who will,
And blessed are the horny hands of toil.

Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new-born that drops into its place, And which, once circling in its placid round Not all the tumult of the earth can shake.

And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think,

And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,

Will risk t'other half for the freedom to speak, Caring naught for what vengeance the mob

has in store,

Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower.

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LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

Life is a leaf of paper white
Whereon each one of us may write

His word or two, and then comes night;
Greatly begin! Though thou hast time
But for a line, be that sublime!
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL.

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NOTE. The following extract is the prelude to Part First of The Vision of Sir Launfal, one of the best of Lowell's efforts as a poet. The poem appeared in 1848, and it has done much to establish the reputation of its author as one of the most scholarly of American poets. Over his keys the musing organist,

Beginning doubtfully and far away, First lets his fingers wander as they list, And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay.

Then, as the touch of his loved instrument Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,

First guessed by faint auroral flushed sent
Along the wavering vista of his dream.

Not only around our infancy
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie.
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb, and know it not.
Over our manhood bend the skies;
Against our fallen and traitor lives
The great winds utter prophecies;

With our faint hearts the mountain strives;
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood
Waits with its benedicite;

And to our age's drowsy blood

Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what earth gives us: The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives

us,

We bargain for the graves we lie in; At the devil's booth are all things sold, Each ounce of dross cost its ounce of gold: For a cap and bells our lives we pay: Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking; 'Tis heaven alone that is given away, "Tis only God may be had for the asking. No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer. And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look or whether we listen, We hear life murmur or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light,

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice; And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace. The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;

He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,

In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it;

No matter how barren the past may have been, "Tis enough for us now that the leaves are

green.

We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell, We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing

That skies are clear and grass is growing.

The breeze comes whispering in our ear
That dandelions are blossoming near,

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,

That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers we should not lack;

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing;
And hark! how clear bold Chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving; 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue"Tis the natural way of living.

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; The soul partakes the season's youth, And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burned-out craters healed with snow. What wonder if Sir Launfal now

Remembered the keeping of his vow?

LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

MRS. MARIA B. LINDESAY.

BORN IN ENGLAND, JAN. 1, 1862.

MRS. LINDESAY is known more as a Christian poet, and her poems have appeared in the

MRS. MARIA B. LINDESAY.

Chicago Living Church and other prominent periodicals. She now resides with her husband in Asheville, N. C.

THE SCULPTOR'S TEST. Within his studio, one bright day, A massive block of marble lay, So wondrous pure, so spotless white It seemed to fill the room with light, And woo his genius to dare And try to form a Being there. Spurr'd by the one inspiring thought, From day to day he patient wrought, From week to week, from year to year Till fourteen of them pictured there, And he all doubt if 'twas his best, And trembling much, applied the test. He called a child, a little child All innocent and undefiled, And pointing to the figure there, In its pure beauty grand and fair, He bade her mark it long and well, And who she thought it was to tell. He watched her with a beating heart, Nor could he check a fearsome start, When the bright eyes had wandered o'er His work, and viewed it yet once more,

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She spoke, as though of holy things,
'Tis some good angel, - without wings."
He turned him to his work again
With more of pleasure than of pain,
And labored on, with hopes and fears,
For seven more long weary years;
And feeling he had done his best,
He once again applied the test.
The child he called unto him now,
Looked on it once with thoughtful brow,
And worshiping with reverent face
The beauty of its wondrous grace,
Bent all abashed, her infant head,
And, It is Jesus Christ," she said.

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CHRIST'S HUMANITY. O! Babe upon thy mother's breast, In our weak garb of suffering drest, So lowly, yet so wondrous high That angels might not pass thee by, And wise men came from distant lands, With kingly offerings in their hands; What dreams prophetic, strange and old Thy heritage and work foretold! O! Child within the temple's court, Where priest and prophet wisdom sought, And thy young lips first ope' to tell, The message that they knew so well; O! Man upon the upward way Beneath the heat and toil of day, With weary feet and tender frame, Yet ever, always, just the same: Mighty to heal, lowly and mild, Yet grand in justice, undefiled, And blending with a god-like love Thy life work with Thy place above! O! Savior at the awful close, Forsook by friends, beset by foesBefore the vengeful bar arraign'd

With brow and garments crimson-stained, Amidst the mob, whose only cry,

In thirsty voice was, Crucify!'

LIFE.

How beautiful is Life! When the first streak [of dawning And all the glint and glow of early morning The wide east fills.

Touches the sunrise hills,

How beautiful is life! At noontide's hour
When, glowing like the sun,
Man's widening pathway lit with wondrous
Is mapped and run.
[power,

How beautiful is life! When eventide
Steals softly on,

And sunset's gates are flining open wide
Till day is done.

How beautiful is life! When mystic night
Disrobes her starry breast,

Gleaming with other world's far distant light, And man must rest.

WILLIAM PEBERDY.

BORN: ENGLAND, JULY 13, 1860.

MR. PEBERDY is now a resident of Middletown Conn., where he follows the occupation of an

WILLIAM PEBERDY.

engineer. His poems have appeared in the press since his youth. He was married in 1884 to Miss Belle M. Patrick, of Gorham, Me.

AN AGED MAN,

Old man, of hoary years and age,

Late falling of its bloom,

Thy history marks the warrior's page
And shares its honored doom.
Thy traveling days are nearly o'er,
And far advanced the day
When thou shalt be to work to more;
But silent death shall say,
Come lay thee down, thou weary one,
My shoulders broad and square

[life

Shall bear thee off, thy duties done,
Thy days should end in prayer.
The part ye have chose from the chalice of
Hath carried thee well to the last;
Hard frozen and frosty, thy season of strife,
Now bleak blows its wintrly blast, [head,
Such numbers of seasons hath changed thine
Ne'er again shall we see its bright glow;
All fairness has gone, and all traces have fled
And left it as white as the snow.
Those long deep lines across thy brow,

Designs of anxious care,
Bespeaks that it hath made a blow,

Which left impression there.

Thy tottering steps old age proclaims

She's master of her will,

And toward the tomb she guides her reins,
Where death shall make thee still.
Then laid at last within the tomb,

That churchyard's quiet bed,

Where leaves will drop and daises bloom
As though thou were not dead.
And all the world will still pursue

Every motion as before,
Feeling not the loss of you,

Because thou art not with us more. Prepare, or yet the breeze of June,

Or one bright ray from that great zone May mark the mantle of our tomb,

Or glance upon a new laid stone That bears thy name or scores our years. The nightly shades which o'er us waves, Unnerves the stranger, breeds his fears; Such lonely sentinels of our graves.

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