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MRS. CONSTANCE RUNCIE.

BORN: INDIANAPOLIS, IND., JAN. 15, 1836. CONSTANCE studied in Germany for six years, and upon her return to America, at the age of twenty-five, she was married to the Rev. James Runcie, D. D. Mrs. Runcie has led a life of wonderful mental activity, and at an early age began to compose music. Her great

MRS. CONSTANCE faunt LE ROY RUNCIE. est success in prose literature was Divinely Led, a work which attained a wide popularity, and was repeatedly quoted from by press and pulpit. In 1888 Poems Dramatic and Lyric appeared, which met with still more gratifying success. In person Mrs. Constance Faunt LeRoy Runcie is very petite.

MEMORY'S PICTURE.

My love came through the door, and lo!
Her very form and face,

So purely simple, seemed to glow
With new, peculiar grace.

Her dress was black, and made of gauze,
Which veiled but did not hide
Her perfect arms, so softly white,
They with the lily vied.
The crimson flowers at her throat
Were all the jewels worn,
Except her eyes, which shone above
With light that was love-born.

She held within her graceful hands
Her hat, which, hanging down,
Broke, with its strings of ribbon bright,
The dead black of her gown.

She was a picture standing there,
Altho' she did not know it,
My love, with earnest, truthful brow,
My dreamer and my poet.

I would have fallen at her feet,
I could have worshiped there,
So graceful in her flowing robes,
But that I did not dare.

I in my very soul and heart,

Would paint her if I could,

As coming through the door that night We saw her as she stood.

BROKEN FRIENDSHIP.

I send no greeting; I do not even feel
Your name forgotten when in prayer I kneel.
You came into my life and passed away,

A troubled dream which flies before the day.
You ask too much.

There comes, at last, an end Of what one ought to suffer for a friend. It then becomes ignoble - self-abase,Not sacrifice-pure-holy-full of grace.

I suffered much where now I cannot feel;

I do not still pretend a friendly zeal

In what you do or are or where you go;

A calm indifference is all I know.

I am not angry even, nor doth there burn
Resentment in my heart! No!

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JAMES H. ASHABRANNER. BORN: NEW ALBANY, IND., DEC. 31, 1861. BROUGHT up on a farm, at eighteen years of age James was apprenticed for one year to the blacksmith's trade, subsequently teaching school for about five years. He was then

JAMES H. ASHABRANNER. elected assistant secretary of the Y. M. C. A., and is now city librarian of the public library in his native town. His poems have appeared from time to time in the Current, Toledo Blade, and other periodicals.

MUTABILITY.

How soon the joys which we have known,
The treasures of our greener years,
Become with moss and rust o'ergrown,
Till scarce the sculptured name appears.
The relics of the past, though few,
Neglected lie within the heart;
The weeds of time conceal their hue,
Or but reveal the tints in part.
The plaything of the prattling boy
Is all the world to him to-day;
To-morrow brings another toy,

For which he flings the old away.
But not alone to infant mind
But to the gray-haired children too,
A toy appears of fair design,

Until replaced by something new.
And friends to whom we said, adieu,
And wept to clasp the parting hand
Fade from the memory, like the hue
Of words engraven on the sand.

The vows that made the parting sweet,
On memory's tablet yield their place
To words of love and smiles that meet
Reflection in a fairer face.

And love that we regard as true

Leaps into flame, and then expires, Or bursts from other vents anew, Relit by flames from other fires. And yet I deem it well, that such Is life and all that it contains; For memory comes with softened touch And brings to mind our lessened pains.

And oh, the past! the silent past!

What shudders seize the maddened brain, When scarce we dare to think, at last The past might come to light again.

For deeply buried in the dust,

Are secrets that we fain would keep. Their tombs we guard with sacred trust Till we, with them, lie down to sleep.

SONG OF SUMMER TIME.

The fields are bright with the golden grain,
That waves in the subtile breeze;
The partridge calls in his loud refrain,
To his mate from the apple-trees.

Sweet and low is the hum of bees,

And the hum of the reaper's tune,
As, one by one, they bind the sheaves
Beneath the skies of June.

Deep in the shade of the beechen grove,
Where the sun and the shadows play,
The oriole swings with his mated love,
And blends his tuneful lay.

Silent and grand with a lurid glow,
Behind the hills of the west,
The chariot of Sol is sinking low,
And bids the harvester rest.

AMOR FATUM VINCIT.

I witnessed, last night, in a vision,
Two pathways from opposite coves,
Converge in the regions elysian,

And wend through celestial groves.
As one single pathway they wandered,
Like rivers that flow to the main,
But while in my vision I pondered,
I saw them diverging again.
And widely asunder they tended,

As fashioned by destiny's might,
But in the dark valley they blended
And entered the realms of light.
Oh, loving hearts here disunited,

Look up through your anguish and tears, For love now so cruelly blighted,

Will bloom through eternity's years.

NELLIE CORINNE BERGEN.

BORN: DELANCO, N. J., OCT. 14, 1868. WHEN a child Nellie lived in Washington and Philadelphia, and at four years of age came to East Saginaw, where she has lived ever since. Graduating in 1887 from the high school, she continued her studies for one year

NELLIE CORINNE BERGEN.

at St. Clair, Michigan. Miss Bergen has made elocution one of her principal studies, and has appeared at several private concerts as Parthenia in Ingomar. Her poems have appeared in several prominent papers, and have received favorable mention from the press and public generally.

CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES.
Fame! what, I pray is fame?
A thing to drive men mad!
And gold! 'tis but a curse,
To make our hearts more sad.

I'd rather a hundred times

Sit here and drub and write,
And have returned each poem
I send, than wear so bright
A crown, yet heavy, too,

As wealth puts on your head;
To drive you till you'd wish
You rested with the dead!
Why, man; it's awfully hard
To bear the burden Fame

Imposes. Better far,

To live, unknown by name, Than be sought after, times

When you for rest most long, For autograph, or theme, On which to write a song! Here do I sit all day,

And none so poor to seek My hiding place secure.

Yes, here from week to week,

I sit, and none molest;
While if the magazines

Should take each poem I write,
What lively times and scenes!

This little room would be

Not large enough by far;

I'd have to move up-town,

And run down" on the car.

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THE YELLOW ROSE. The yellow rose,- I have it now; The rose I sent my love! The beauteous rose once wet with dew, The rose I sent my love!

The petals fine were emblems true,

Oh love I bore to her,

The tender flower a token true,
Oh love I bore to her.

And here it is all faded now,

She sent it back to me;
And here it is all dead and sere;
She sent it back to me.

STELLA, MY STAR.

Oh Stella, my star, bright star,

Say where are you shining to-night?

If I, by my heart, could tell,

To you would I wing my flight.

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ELLA S. JOHNSON.

THIS lady is a resident of Houston, Texas, where she is well and favorably known by her many admirers. She has written poetry quite extensively for the periodical press, and

is represented in Gems From a Texas Quarry. Her poems have been highly praised by the press, and have been copied extensively throughout the western states.

PERDITA IN DEO.

In a dim and haunted forest
By a dark and silent lake,
Where the coral-hued flamingos

Come at eve their thirst to slake;
Where the blue-bird prinks its feathers
In the silence and the dark,
And the vivid red-bird flutters
Through the branches like a spark.
Sleeps my child-wife wee Perdita,
Underneath the moss and ferns,
With the giant trees above her,
Where the wind at midnight yearns.
In the evening, in the dark night,
Evermore my heart returns
To this dim and mystic forest,
With its mosses and its ferns.
Hermit-like I rove its vastness,
From the twilight till the dawn,
There's a new face in the city
From the sky a star is gone.

A DREAM POEM.
WHITE VIOLET.

Thou small, exquisite flower,
Dying on my heart,

Art thou of the universe
A spirit, or a part?

Thy fragrance is thy soul,-
O! breathe it into mine.
That thought may be divine.

Thy subtle odor thrills

Me with intense delight;

The day becomes a dream,

A memory the night.

Thou hast entranced me quite;

Thy sweet escaping soul

Hath mine in its control.

Now far, now near, it floats,

The voice that haunts my dreams,
Tender as winds that stir-

At midnight lonely streams;
All wildly, sadly sweet;

So fond and kind, so low,

And faint with happy woe.

My own, my own, it breathes,

And dies upon the air;

My pulses thrill to life

Sweet is love's answered prayer

O! most divinely sweet!

A spirit haunts the hour,

Thou wan, exquisite flower.

THE WOUNDED BIRD. Upon the green wood tree apart

I sang for thee my sweetest song; Thy arrow almost struck my heart; I fell the withered leaves among. Why hast thou shot the little bird

That sang its sweetest song to thee? Oh, when my heart by love was stirred, That love burst forth in melody.

My little heart was full of love;

God's sunshine kept it strong and warm. Oh, how couldst thou so cruel prove?

I never did thee any harm. No more across the bright blue sky With bounding heart I'll speed my way; No more my little mate and I

Will watch the breaking of the day. The speckled eggs within my nestOh, long ere this are cold-stone cold. More painful grows my wounded breast, And blood is on my plumes of gold. Is that my wild mate's note I hear Within the leafy tree close by? My cry it heard and has flown near Only, alas! to see me die.

Why hast thou shot the little bird

That sang its sweetest song for thee? Oh, when my heart by love was stirred? That love burst into melody!

HELEN LEE CAREY.

BORN: IPSWICH, MASS., SEPTEMBER, 1857. AT the age of twenty Miss Carey became a school teacher. The first poem of this lady appeared in the Cottage Hearth when she

was eighteen years of age; and since that time they have appeared in the Boston Transcript, Youth's Companion and many other periodicals of equal prominence. Miss Carey is still a resident of her native state at Malden.

The river's gleaming stream of steel,
Whose fringe of ice the waves conceal
That echo back our sleigh-bells' peal.
Here stands a quiet farm-house; there
A stretch of glistening fields lies bare;
Here thickets, robed in white array,
Climb the steep banks, and sharply lay
Dark shadows o'er our rapid way.
The shaken trees their crystals fling,
That shatter with an airy ring;

And hark! a mocking ripple swells

From where the covered streamlet wells

And tinkles through its icy cells.

Away again! yon pine-trees tall

Close round us a mysterious wall;

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Through their great harps the solemn moan

Of winds is sweeping, long and lone,

In melancholy minor tone.

Away through spicy forests, hung

With mantles by the storm-winds flung,

From out whose solitude the sigh

Of breezes brings some weird, wild cry,

To scare us as we glimmer by.

Ah, see! the watch-fire on the lake,

Where merry skaters pleasure take!
Their voices, as we onward go,

Die to a light cadenza low,

As sounds through dreams of music flow.

The prospect widens; on before

Stretches the broad lake's dazzling floor;
And far, where pearly vapors rise,
Shine through a mist the peaceful skies
And azure hills of paradise.

The distance shuts like wings behind;
Before, it opens silver-lined;
The angel of the radiant night
Leads ever on before our flight,
And past us stream its robes of light.

SLEIGHING.

Here are we nestled, warm and snug,
Within the cutter's perfumed rug,
And swiftly o'er the light road skim
Toward the hills that far and dim
Lie on the cold horizon's rim.
Away, away! the snow is white,
The air is clear, the moon is bright,
To backward glance the village spires,
Tipped with their pale up-pointing fires,
Fade as a holy thought expires.
Away! to-night our company
The spirits of the frost shall be:

We'll chase the flying bells whose play
On moonlit meadows far away
Is softened to a murmur gay.
Away through villages that lie
Like silver jewels, gliding by

EXOTICS.

Thou! I love thee! cool, dim green and carmine,

Creamy, pure white and frail pink deep'ning down

Rare mingling forms and perfumed colors mingling

O sweetest soundless music that can drown All feelings save this longing thou dost wake Toward I know not what!- Art thou a

key

To ope the door of the mysterious Life
Whose fire leaps into my heart through thee?
Ah! now I know the secret of thy power!
Poem of Nature! the Promethean flame-
The infinite Thought breathes in thy perfect
beauty,

And writes on thee the glory of a name.