ALGERNON SYDNEY LOGAN.

BORN: PHILADELPHIA, MAY 17, 1849.

IN 1875 appeared The Mirror of a Mind, a volume of verse from the pen of Mr. Logan, which was favorably received. Three years later The Image of Air was published; Saul, a dramatic poem, in 1883; A Feather from the World's Wing, in 1885; a prose work entitled

ALGERNON SYDNEY LOGAN.

Jesus in Modern Life, in 1888; and in 1890, Messalina, a five-act tragedy. Algernon Sydney Logan is a direct descendant of James Logan who came to America with William Penn as his secretary, in 1686, and afterward became chief justice of the province. Mr. Logan is also a descendant of John Dickinson the author of the celebrated Farmer's Letters, and governor of Pennsylvania shortly after the close of the revolutionary war. He was married in 1873 to Miss Mary W. Wister, and has one son, Robert, born in 1874. Mr. Logan has visited Europe a number of times and has spent several years in Italy, where many of his poems were written.

AUGUST.

I wandered through the chilly night,
I heard the whippoorwill,
The passing brant on high did chant,
The frogs sang sharp and shrill;

And many a wild bird in his flight,

With ghostly fall and swell, To the far north, whence he came forth, Did hymn his wild farewell.

The summer's cloak was faded,

Her matron bloom was gone,
Her queenly pace had lost its grace,
Her cheek was worn and wan;

But the moon as calmly waded

The depths of the cloudless sky

As she did on the night when the queen

was dight

In the robes of majesty.

And I thought how the dews of even,

As they gather on the brow,

May be made to gleam with the tingeless

beam

Of a light not born below

How the glow from our inner heaven,

With its sheen of deathless white,

May cast a ray on our senseless clay

In the soul's eternal night.

AUTUMN LEAVES.

The leaves lie cold

On the cumbered mold,

Their corpses lie white all around,Uninterred where they fall,

Till their whiter pall

By winter is spread on the ground.

But when March with his cloud

And his voice so loud,

As he shouts in the leafless tree,

Shall lift with his hand

Their pall from the land,

The corpses shall vanished be.

SONG.

The moon with her viewless hands,
Transparent, light and free,

Was parting a place
For her dreamy face

To gaze on the troubled sea.

There were bells in wave-washed hands Which tolled eternally;

There was roar on roar Far down the shore, And laughter out to sea.

There were four on the sands to-night, Two shadows and two forms

Behind and before

Flew the froth on the shore,
And foam tn the land of storms.

Need shadows or shapes more light?
O which has the firmer home?
Which stabler stuff,

The moth-like fluff,

Or the bird-like flying foam?

O heart-uniting kiss!

O bosom beating free!

O eyelids wet

With joy! and yet

The wild bells out to sea!

Through the languor of the kiss
Which wrapped them tenderly,
Came the steady roar
Far down the shore,
And the laughter out to sea!

THE IMAGE OF AIR.

It was the early autumn and the wind,
Like some lone maiden half to sport inclined
And half to sadness, who thro' woodland ways
Moves aimless, singing wild and broken lays,
Sang restlessly amidst the restful tombs.
Now soft it breathed upon the hanging bloom
Of salvia, which with conquest-loving hue
Around the base of many a statue grew,
Making their icy pallor more complete;
And now with hollow laugh for madness
meet,

Discordant laugh of Destiny, the wind,
Like one too heartless e'en to be unkind,
Seized on the leaves by summer's passion
seared,

And bore them from the present.

As I neared

The center of the spot the evening fell -
Pale evening, with her mind-compelling spell,
Whose gentle hand, invisible, is prone
To bear the balance of our musings down,
Giving due weight to thoughts impalpable,
By day too little reckoned. Evening fell.
The unstable gilding of the western sky,
A moment hence too brilliant for the eye,
Began to slowly tarnish and to fade;
Around me gleamed from dusky copse and
glade-

Some straight and tall, some leaning to decay

The emblems pale of effort past away.

The youthful tombs were white as drifted

snow,

The aged dark - they darker ever grow Forming grim contrast to man's destiny, Who still grows whiter as the years creep by. My thoughts went wandering 'midst the mindful stones,

Mindful of names of long-forgotten bones, Culling some mosses from mortality.— Thoughts are there which do cheat the mental eye,

So complex is their nature: now they seem Near and familiar, now a sudden gleam

Will lightning-like show cloud-forms far

away;

Now do they move as reasonings cold and gray,

Now as warm memories passionate sweep along;

Now as one shape, now as a spirit throng Such musings meet us till their sense to hold We fain must press them to one stable mold, We consciously with form our thoughts endow

That we may treat with them. With motion slow

From out the vapors of the coming night
A shadow rose before me-no grim sprite,
The child of superstition-bnt a shade
By me from thoughts of saddest import made.
Aged he seemed, though not yet near his

prime

A withered flower bids us think of time, E'en though the wrinkles on its velvet cheek Were furrowed by the hour;- his mien was

bleak,

As if 'midst magic mountains lingering,
He deep had drunk of some enchanted spring
Within whose every bubble lurked a year;
With careless steps unmeasured he drew

near

Then sudden paused, but even his very pause Was, like his motions restless, and the laws Which ruled his looks and motions were un

known,

For these were rhythmless and each alone -
As the long tendrils of neglected vines
O'er casements hanging in entangled lines,
Sway without concert to the wild strain,
And tap with aimless fingers on the pane.
Oh, he was beautiful beyond compare,
His face than man's, nay, more than woman's
fair,

Yet 'twas a beauty that with pained amaze
Filled the beholder, for beneath the gaze
It seemed to fade, yet gazing none might
know

If it had faded, or was always so.
Through all his being, even to his sigh,
There breathed a palpable uncertainty,
To look upon him was to feel a pang,

A dread, though none might say from whence it sprang

A straining of the mind, bewilderment,
Hope and suspense in strange confusion
blent.

The wildest voices of the mind awoke
Within his presence, and as forth they broke
Into a hurried chant, pale memory
Holding her solemn harp stood silent by,
And struck wild chords between the wilder
staves-

A sound of question, restless as the waves!

For at his sight there swept across the soul
A consciousness of thoughts beyond control,
As from the past we feverishly strive
Some joy forgotten vainly to revive,
Some dream of beauty deaf to memories call,
Which once familiar mocks our efforts all.
In all his motions, gestures, features, mien,
An incomplete perfection there was seen,
A loveliness unearthly wild and free,
From its fair sequence severed. Near to me
The figure drew, then quickly passed again,
As if the creature of his laboring brain;
His eye, which like a wind-tormenting flame,
Now pale and blue, now gleaming bright be-
came,

Fell on a fragil tablet which he bore

His hand flew fast, his thoughts his hand before

He wrote o'er half the tablet, and anon
Gazed quickly 'round, as if in quest of one
To whom it might be shown-but none ap-
peared -

Then faded grew his eye,his features bleared,
Dim grew his form fantastical and gray,
Even as the spirits of the storms when they
Around the moon their magic misty ring
Form hand in hand,and to her footsteps cling.
To stay the shadow e'er it grew inwrought
With other forms around, I said. or thought,
..Who art thou that in such phantasmal guise
Still bearest the weight of human energies?"
As memories of dreams to present care,
As crescent moonlight is to mid-day's glare,
So to all human voices, when he spoke,
The sound I felt, which silence never broke:
..I am shape of one who lived in vain,
If being be to be not, since I gain
An entity in speech which is not mine;
Yet mayst thou in this evanescent line

The wraith in words of that which was behold
As I in form." Ere ceased his utterance cold
Which seemed remembered and not heard,

he gained

A marble shaft, and from its surface planed Its frigid eulogy, its grief of ice,—

Each awkward text, each weary dull device,
Dates, emblems, letters, all he did erase-
All save a lyre sculptured at the base-
Then glowing like the wisp that skips the
moat,

A phantom epitaph the phantom wrote
In letters coldly luminous; it seemed

As if a glow-worm o'er the marble gleamed,
Creeping across it with his lantern green,
For each word vanished ere the next was seen.
What is it in the garden of the earth

64

If one bud wither, lovely though it be?
If one mind fails the promise of its birth,
What loss to man in man's eternity?
This stone the type of cold rigidity,

This snow which noonday melts not, stands for one

Who deemed his mission was to feel and see;
For in him nature's changing face was shown
As seas and flowers change their aspect with
the sun.

Look down upon a plain of blooming flowers,
A forest, or the ocean and behold
How these are grave or gay but as the hours
Which float above are clad in gray or gold-
Like these he changed, yet long ere he grew
old

His heart became of one dull, changeless hue, The hedge 'twixt him and hopes, which childhood bold

A tussock deemed, a giant barrier grew Each year it seemed to gain in height and briers new.

His was no sombre self-consoled despair Which thinks the world as stupid as unkind, He deemed that he was wanting and with care He strove his nature's secret flaw to find; He roamed o'er foreign lands and saw mankind

In many aspects and with toil by night He probed the thoughts of many a perished mind,

By day he watched all breathlessly the fight Which freedom ever makes against inhuman might.

But as each hour adown time's chasm rolled,
Toil unrewarded wrought its vengeance dire,
His heart grew weary and his hand grew cold
In stirring the unfed, unwilling fire;
And as upon some lofty granite spire
The seeds, wind wafted, lodging one by one,
With tiny thews which ages cannot tire
Hurl crumbling down each mighty sculp-

tured stone,

So fell his noblest thoughts by petty cares o'ergrown.

Oh, he was like a sprig of severed bay, Whose functions perish ere its beauty cease, Or like the smiles that o'er the features play Of midnight sleepers, powerless to please, And lost in darkness. Deprived of rest and

ease,

He could not frame his mind to sink or soar, His was obscurity without its peace;

For though life's winds his cloud-built em

pire tore,

Still phantom pageants swept his dazzled eyes before.

Now all he was and all he strove to be,
All that he hoped that others might become,
Although recorded none shall ever see-
Far better had he been forever dumb;
His hope of fame--"

The spectre's hand was raised More syllables to form, when sudden blazed

Athwart the ivy leaves' inwoven bar
The eternal radiance of a rising star-
Some thought of hope which lurked within

the ray

Made the dim shadow's shadow fade away.
He faded fast and left me standing there
Alone with nature and relieved of care.
Thou silent witness that tho' crushed by ill
We are a part of something glorious still!
Sensation of expansion and expanse
Which lifts our thoughts above the fretful
trance

Of our too subtle musings, the dull fear
That we but follow in the world's career,
The self-tormenting effort to be great,
How do these fade before thy tranquil state!
Oh, Nature, Nature, effortless and calm,
Thy beauty is the soul's eternal balm.

TO THE WIND.

Eternal minstrel! who through every land Harpest wild melodies from door to door, Thy lays 'neath palace eaves are not more grand

Than in the smoky chimneys of the poor. Saddest of harpers! of thy songs, can none Back to the lip a vanished smile recall? No, there is not of all thy ditties one

But wakes a sigh, or bids a tear to fall. Thou sing'st of home to those that houseless rove, [scorn, Past friends to those mankind despise and Thy songs tell trembling age it once could love, [mourn;

And bid unwilling youth feel it shall Thou singst of our own graves which thou

Peterson's Magazine, and numerous other prominent publications. She resides with her sister in the little village of Williamston. S. C., during her vacations.

ONLY VIOLETS.

Only violets fragrant and blue,
Round with pearls of morning dew,
Telling of absent friends so true.
Only violets, but gathered for you;
And yet. my friend, you can't tell who,
Gathered these violets, guess now do.
Then let these violets typical be
Of the friendship pure I bear for thee,
Love and keep them just for me.

A FRAGMENT.

"Twas only a coin of antique make,
Given a token for friendship sake,
Forever keep:

To keep in memory of that day,
When two friends parted, each their way
In life to wend.

Each had their mission there to fill
To nobly do their Master's will
In every fleld;

Whether He bids them toil or bide
In noonday heat or eventide,
As He should will.

Our life is made of link on link,
Unbroken till we near the brink
Of the river deep;

Even then does friendship take our hand
Safe leads us to the border land,
And for us weep.

ROSABEL.

Like a lily rudely brushed,
Like a hare-bell early crushed,
Lay in death's deep awful hush
Darling Rosabel.

Through the river dark and deep,
Went the dimpled baby feet;
But the Savior came to meet
Angel Rosabel.

Wintry winds did sadly sigh;

Hearts were breaking; God drew nigh; For he heard that bitter cry

Rosabel! Rosabel!

Winter snows fall soft and white

O'er a little grave to night

Where sleeps the beauteous baby bright Rosabel! Rosabel!

EXTRACT.

Many tints of fairy land

By life's early halo spanned

Time has touched with shad'wy hands.

ADELAIDE STOUT.

THIS child of the muses has been known for the past decade and over, by her fugitive poems, which have appeared from time to time in the papers and magazines of the day. There is a depth of meaning, feeling and deep poetic insight pervading all that she

ADELAIDE STOUT.

writes. Her poems, Little One, Gathering Mint, Sweet Brier, Consider, Pets, are among her recent productions which have elicited much comment, giving her the reputation of being one of the ablest writers in the western part of New York. William Cullen Bryant was one of the first to recognize her genius. She has a good income and writes merely for the joy and love of it. In the near future, she will give to the world a volume of her poems. The New Christianity at Philadelphia, the New Church, Independent, The Interior, and other prominent papers published many of her recent offerings - the fragrant blossoms and incense of a pure heart.

GATHERING MINT.

How strange that even the sweet smell
Of herb or gathered flower
Steals o'er the senses, touching them
With such a subtle power
That all life's morning scene is new,
Where erst the plant of flow'ret grew.
This morn the cool air floated in,
Sweet with the scent of mint;
We close our eyes, and in the loam
We see the soft, fresh print

Of tiny feet; how white they gleam.
Set in the black loam of the stream!

The tinkling stream flows on as clear
As when, with feet half wet,
On stones that seemed so far apart,
Our shrinking feet we set.
A ready hand is at our side,
And firmer feet, to gently guide.
The mullein's dust is on fair brows,
We laugh a sweet refain
At merriment of him who wears

On sun-browned cheek the stain
Of golden dust; he's robbed the bee
Of pollen, and right merrily.

The light gleams over cheek and brow, And flashes in those eyes.

And now in those clear depths we see

Only the shadow lies;

We watch them often, and they seem
Sullen and dark as winter stream.

We bring our gathered thyme and mint,
Each brightest-colored stone.

And lay them in the lap of one

Who scarcely deigns to own

The gifts, that in our small hands were
Precious as if of gold or myrrh.

The tiny lady" takes our gifts,
And queens it over all;

And still into her hand and lap

The best life holds doth fall, The best to her seems off'ring meet. To lie unnoticed at her feet.

The hands that won from the stream's bed Its shining stones of old

Are larger, in the stream of life

They gather discs of gold;
But hearts that beat in childish.play,
Have altered little since that day.

The boy who waited at the stream.
With such a tender skill,
To guide the little ones across
Is just as helpful still;
At life's deep ford his feet are set,
Helping the children over yet.
The eyes that watch for timid souls,
Are calm as any lake,

While just beneath, o'er slippery stones,
The foam-capped water breaks.
God counts and none but God alone,
The feet helped over each wet stone.
And those who gave and those who took
But typed in childish play
The part that each is acting out,
In busy life to-day;

Helpless or selfish, each I deem,
Gathered treasure at .. The Stream."