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LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

MRS. MARY A. A. SENTER.

BORN: GREAT FALLS, N. H., SEPT. 1, 1835. THIS lady was educated at New Haven, Conn., and at Northfield, N. H. Her father was a noted Methodist clergyman. She married

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A form that seem'd like a truant from heaven, And that never sinn'd, but to be forgiven. Though death was so stern, he left the trace Of a holy smile on her calm white face; Methinks 'twas a shade that the spirit had cast As away from that temple so lovely it pass'd.

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IT MATTERS NOT.

It matters not if sun or rain

Fall in my life's short day,

Or strains of joy, or strains of pain,
Burst from my lips alway.

It matters not if gloom surround,

And darkness gathers now,

And even now with thorns be crown'd

My weary aching brow.

It matters not how rough the road

That I must journey through,

If I but reach the blest abode

Of Him who suffered too.

And naught of earth can move my breast,

Its glitter nor its show,

For Christ has said, I'll give you rest,

I all your sorrows know.

And ever more I close my heart

To this vain world of sin,

I've chosen now the better part,

And Jesus reigns within.

And when at last life's journey done,

I stand on death's lone shore, Oh! may I have the blessed one To gently bear me o'er.

WILT THOU COME NOT THEN? When at last the twilight falleth, And the shadows come apace, And around me friendship calleth, Many a dear familiar face,

Wilt thou come not then? When my life has almost drifted To the far-off golden shore, Ere the curtain is uplifted, Hiding heaven never more,

Wilt thou come not then? When my eyes with earnest pleading, Look for those that are most dear, As my life is fast receding, Shall I know that thou art near? Wilt thou come not then?

Ere my voice is hushed forever,

And my eyes are closed for aye, Ere my hands can clasp thine never, Ere the angels bear away,

Wilt thou come not then?
Must the golden bowl be broken,
And the vale of shadow past,
Ere I hear the dear word spoken,
Saying I have come at last?
I shall see thee then!

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LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

BORN: HAVERHILL, MASS., DEC. 17, 1807. THE boyhood days of John Greenleaf Whittier was spent on a farm, where he worked in the summer, and in winter he assisted his father, who was a shoemaker. His family were members of the Society of Friends, and for that reason the poet is usually spoken of as the "Quaker poet." Mr. Whittier received only a

And, more to her than gold or grain,
The cunning hand and cultured brain.
For still in mutual sufferance lies
The secret of true living;
Love scarce is love that never knows
The sweetness of forgiving.

We shape ourselves the joy or fear Of which the coming life is made, And fill our future atmosphere With sunshine or with shade.

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The tissues of life to be

We weave with colors all our own,

And in the field of destiny

We reap as we have sown.

Dream not helm and harness

The sign of valor true:

Peace hath higher tests of manhood

Than battle ever knew.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. common school education: yet, on becoming of age, he assumed the editorship of a paper, and has ever since devoted himself to literature. Although he has written both prose and poetry, he is chiefly distinguished as a poet, borrowing his inspiration largely from current events. The best poems of Mr. Whittier are: Maud Muller, My Psalm, My Playmate, Snow Bound and Centennial Hymn. His principal prose works are Old Portraits and Modern Sketches, and Literary Recreations. In the poems of Whittier we find masculine vigor combined with womanly tenderness; a fierce hatred of wrong, with an all-embracing charity and love. He is unmarried, and has resided at Amesbury, Massachusetts, since 1840.

EXTRACTS.

The riches of a commonwealth

Are free, strong minds and hearts of health,

SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE.
EXTRACTS.

Small pity for him!-He sailed away
From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,-
Sailed away from a sinking wreck,

With his own towns-people on her deck!

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Lay by! lay by!" they called to him.

Back he answered, "Sink or swim!

Brag of your catch of fish again!"

And off he sailed through the fog and rain!

Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!

Through the street, on either side,
Up flew windows, doors swung wide;
Sharp tongued spinsters, old wives gray,
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
Hulks of old sailors run aground,
Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,
And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain:
Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"

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Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea
Said, "God has touched him!-why should we?"
Said an old wife mourning her only son,
"Cut the rogues tether and let him run!"
So with soft relentings and rude excuse,
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose.
And gave him a cloak to hide him in,
And left him alone with his shame and sin.
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead?

THE BAREFOOT BOY.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
⚫ Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan;
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lip, redder still
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace!
From my heart I give thee joy:
I was once a barefoot boy.
Prince thou art: the grown-up man
Only is republican..

Let the million-dollared ride:
Barefoot, trudging at his side,
Thou hast more than he can buy
In the reach of ear and eye-
Outward sunshine, inward joy.
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools,-
Of the wild bee's morning chase;
Of the wild-flower's time and place:
Flight of fowl, and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell;
How the woodchuck digs his cell;
And the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young;
How the oriole's nest is hung;
Where the whitest lillies blow;
Where the freshest berries grow;
Where the groundnut trails its vine;
Where the wood-grupe's clusters shine;
Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay;
And the architectural plans

, Of gray hornet-artisans!

For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all be asks.
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy:
Blessing on the barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for!
I was rich in flowers or trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry-cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden-wall,

Talked to me from fall to fall;

Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond;
Mine the walnut slopes beyond;
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
Still, as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too:
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy.
Oh for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread
(Pewter spoon and bowl of wood)
On the doorstone gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play

Of the pied frogs' orchestra,
And to light the noisy choir
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.

I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy.
Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can.
Though the flinty slopes be hard,

Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,

Every morn shall lead thee through

Fresh baptisms of the dew;

Every evening, from thy feet

Shall the cool wind kiss the heat;

All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison-cells of pride;
Lose the freedom of the sod;
Like a colt's, for work be shod;
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil,
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in

Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah that thou couldst know thy joy
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

MAUD MULLER.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

Maud Muller, on a summer's day
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But, when she glanced to the far off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,-
A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draft from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow, across the road.

She stopped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and tattered gown.
..Thanks!" said the Judge, a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles, bare and brown,
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!
..He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.

My father should wear a broadcloth coat,
My brother should sail a painted boat.
"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy cach day.
"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor
And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still:

"A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

"And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair.

Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her a harvester of hay.

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle, and song of birds
And health, and quiet, and loving words."
But he thought of his sister, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,

When he hummed in court an old love tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead,
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover blooms:
And the proud man sighed with a secret pain,
"Ah, that I were free again!

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Free as when I rode that day
Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay."
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow and child-birth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay on the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

And, gazing down with a timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow-candle an astral burned;
And for him who sat by the chimmey lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, .. It might have been."
Alas for maiden, alas for judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: .. It might have been!"
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!

ROBERT REXDALE.

BORN: MARCH 26, 1859.

IN New England the name of Robert Rexdale, journalist, is well known as the author of Saved by the Sword, a novel, published at Boston, Mass., early in 1889. But as a poet he gained an enviable reputation at a much earlier age, and in 1886 appeared his Drifting Songs and Sketches, a volume of verse and

prose. Among poets he is best known as the author of Transit of Venus, a mythological poem of much strength and beauty. He is entirely self-educated, being apprenticed to the printers' trade when he was but thirteen years old. His literary career dates from 1880. Mr. Rexdale is yet unmarried. Since 1885, becoming actively engaged in journalism, he has been assistant editor of the Portland Sunday Times; and as poet, novelist and newspaper man, he enjoys a reputation achieved by but few men before their thirtieth year.

IN THE GLOAMING.
Like the far away gleam
Of a mist-hidden stream,

The joys of the morning are showing!
But their light, as it nears,

Shall illumine the years Where waters of Lethe are flowing.

Though we mingle no more

On that magical shore,

Where brightly the sunlight is shining!
There are raptures that blend
When the shadows descend,
And life to its close is declining.

For the stars will arise

In our evening skies,

The blossoms will bloom in the heather!
While so trustful and true,

We will look to the blue,
And wait in the gloaming together.

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EUTERPE.

This hour so beautiful with bloom
Is sacred to the muse of song!
Its glowing sunset heights illume
The hopes o'ershadowed by the tomb,
And bid the fainting soul be strong.

And now Euterpe's harp is crowned

With gems that flash like morning rays, She gives us music for each wound, And bids the spirit lift its gaze

To skies blue-arched above the mound.

If olden memories of tears,

The ghosts of unforgotten pain,

Rise through the mournful mists of years!
She sings of undiscovered spheres,
And solace brings the weary brain.
O sentient Lyre! O breathing Shell!
Thy mission to the world we own;
Since in the light of thy sweet spell,
That star-like o'er the desert shone,

New scenes of beauty rise and dwell.
So heavenward, on triumphant wings,
Take flight, tired heart! and end thy
quest.

Where Music's wand hath touched the springs,

And love is in the song she sings,
There flow the crystal streams of Rest.

THE CRICKET.

Araluen, vexed and weary

With the dreamy summer day,
Said the cricket's song was dreary,
Thought the shadows cold and gray.
"Little maiden, little maiden,"

Seemed the cricket's chant to be,
.. Life to-day with love is laden,
God is good to you and me."
Sang the cricket in the thicket,

By the swiftly-flowing stream;
Softly ope'd the golden wicket,
To the fairy land of Dream!
Stars of Elfland! faintly stealing
Through the mists that fold the night,

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