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The winter's breath of snow and sleet
No longer on our faces beat,

And loungers have resumed the street;
To work the house-wife quick will go
House cleaning, that the world may know
She is to dirt a deadly foe.

The house she'll rummage through and through,

The bed-rooms and the closets too;
Mid-floor their contents she will pile,
And greet her lord with winning smile
While she demands a carpet new.
Each table, bedstead, stand and chair,
Of scrubbing gets an ample share,
And soon the spouse becomes aware
The carpets from the floors are ripped,

The bureaus, brackets, stands and cases,
Must occupy some new-found places
For the ensuing year;

The parlor stove removed must be,
The pipes from soot be shaken free:
The pictures from the walls be taken;
The blankets, rugs and bed-quilts shaken;
And every nook with suds be drenched,
The kitchen fire remaining quench'd,
For dinner he in vain may look,

And should he grumble at the cook,
A flea gets in his ear.

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CAMP-FIRE ADDRESS.

We bid you to night to a soldiers' collation, The hardtack and coffee before you are

spread,

The days when the rooster, aloft from his station,

Sent down his shrill challenge for swift confiscation

Are gone, or we'd offer you pot-pie instead. Time was when the voice of the chanticleer

crowing,

Was sweet to the soldier whose ears now are

dull;

The turkey's loud gobble would set his heart

glowing;

The bleat of the lampkin to him was a show

ing

That mutton was free-tho' they tariff'd

the wool.

The squawk of the goose and the quack of the

duckling

Were melody sweeter than timbrel or lute; The motherly porker's low grunt to her suckling,

Whose squeak reach'd his when his knapsack unbuckling

Has caused every gland of his mouth to dilute.

But gone are the days of our grub confiscations;

No longer to forage we turn from the track; Our marches have brought us to one of the

stations

Where we must content us with government rations,

And swallow our coffee and nibble our tack. Alas for those days - they are ever reminding The soldier how swift from the mess-fire he

fled,

When the cook in a rage from the smoke that was blinding,

Stopp'd stirring his beans or his bacon un

winding,

To fling both an oath and a club at his head.

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We miss too the cubical pieces of liver

In half a canteen on the end of a stick, Well wash'd by the water from ditch or from river,

And held to the fire with persistent endea

vor,

"Til cook'd to the semblance of miniature bricks.

Ah! oft in the light of the camp-fire's gleaming,

Enwrapped in his blanket, a log for his head,

While gray-backs were friskily over him streaming,

In blissful oblivion the soldier lay dreaming Of cookies and doughnuts and mother-made bread.

But his dreamings of home and its knicknacks are ended,

Realities now are his staple in life;

No longer he sleeps in the fire-light extended,

His slumbers, instead of by bad dreams attended

Are seasoned by lectures or snores from his wife.

LINES ON HEARING OF THE DEATH OF A SOLDIER FRIEND.

Friend of my youthful days!

And art thou passed away.

Is that bright smile that cheer'd me with its rays

Now dimn'd for aye?

Is that warm hand which erst 'twas mine to clasp

Now seized by death's inexorable grasp?
Have those loved lips been open'd in thy gasp,
Thou grim restorer of earth-borrow'd clay?
Comrade, when thoughtless boys!
And is thy heart now cold?

Are death's dark waves, submerging all earth's joys

Now o'er thee roll'd?

Is thy great soul from earthly thralls unbound?

Has thy freed spirit gone where joys are found

Of holier source-of depths still more pro

found

Than those which have thy mortal life controll'd?

And is it ours to weep?

To mourn thee gone from here?
To murmur, while unrestfully we sleep,
Of memories dear?

To bathe with tears the hallow'd shrine
Where we our cherish'd hopes resign;
To clasp in love the hand divine
That deals the blow severe?

Yes, noble soul, thou'rt gone;

Thine earthly joys are past;

The dreaded bound, which mortals one by

one

Step o'er while earth shall last,

Has been by thee in confidence o'er stepped-
Well may thy parents weep-

Their hearts with anguish torn,
As word of thee, in thine unwaking sleep,
To them is borne,

When I, a simple friend of thine,
Am prompted, on receipt of mine,
To pour my grief upon the shrine [mourn.
Where all, who knowing loved thee, come to

Author of life- of love!

In justice thou dost deal;

Direct our hopes to thy bright realms above For all our weal!

Give us we pray, the strength to bear our

woes;

Mingle with love the terror of thy blows! Teach smitten mortals, while in anguish throes,

Thy spirit's calm to feel!
Each burst of contrite grief,

Beneath the chastening rod,
Gives to the soul a blest relief,
And brings it nearer God!

Each tearful hour that here we spend;

Each pang that doth the heart-strings rend; Each anguish cry to Heaven we send, Prepares for us the road!

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That the blue

And above,

of the poems of this lady containing over four Oft; until my heart is certain
hundred pages, which has had a large circula-
tion. Miss Hurd is at present engaged in pre- Far beyond these silver tissues,
paring for the press a second volume of
poems and a prose story entitled The Three Is the heaven, and its issues
Orators; and she is also employed in the com-
pilation of the history of Hallowell, Maine.

SORROW.

Little brooklet, in thy song
All of joy partaking,
Hush thy babbling all day long,
For my heart is breaking!
Every sound in earth and air,
All thy shouted surges,
All the voices everywhere
Seem like lonesome dirges!
Sad as wailings o'er the grave,
Is thy joyous sweeping;

Let the north wind still thy wave
To a silent weeping.

Let the west wind from his sheath
Fling an icy quiver,

All are love.

FRAGMENTS.

Within the hollow tree to-night

In silence grave the great owl sits,
Which yesterday boded a storm

With its tu-whoos" and its ..tu-hits!"
Adown the mountain's sloping side

The brooklet dashes! frowns the sky!
Darkness is dense! clouds crowd the west!
Among the lichens dead shapes lie!
The great frame of the giant oak

Rocks madly 'neath the hurricane!
And by forked tongues of lurid fire
Huge rocks are swift smitten in twain!
The angry billows, mountain high,
Sullen, and dark, and capped with foam,
Roll upward, until sea and cloud
Seem to be surging sea alone!

GRACE HOLMES.

BORN: WAYNE, MICH., JULY 18, 1866. THE poems of Miss Grace Holmes have appeared in Arthur's Home Magazine, St. Louis Magazine, and the local press generally. She

O brilliant are the flowers soon to feel the touch of frost,

And glorious the sunset sky that the full noon-day lost:

And beautiful each countenance of the aged man and wife,

Who sit within the doorway near the tranquil close of life.

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SUMMER.

Summer, crowned with skies of azure,
Summer, gracious with thy music,
Summer, fresh in ripened beauty
Why so call thee, Queen of Season?

For thy glorious sky at sunset,

For the nights fair, starlit heavens, For the fresh and dewy mornings,

So we term thee Queen of Seasons. Summer, robed in all thy glory, Summer, wrapped in all thy splendor, Summer, bathed in all thy brightness, Why so call thee Queen of Season?

For the meadows green with clover,

For the hill tops touched with sunshine For the woodlands decked with blossoms, So we term thee Queen of Seasons.

GRACE HOLMES.

is studying shorthand and typewriting at St. Louis. Miss Holmes is very fond of literature, and her poems have already received favorable mention.

A SUNSET.

The fair day closes, calm and still,
The red sun sinks behind the hill;
Above the hill, in varied hue,

The red cloud quivers through the blue.
Through fields of corn, through crowds of

trees,

One breeze doth chase another breeze;
They twirl the leaves and stir the grass,
And bend the flowers as they pass;
They shake the vines that clamber o'er
And round about a farm house door,
And fan the cheeks and brush the hair,
Of an old couple sitting there.

O, ripened are the cornfields, and flaming are the leaves,

And the breeze that stirs the mellow land is not a languid breeze;

NATURE'S SECRETS.

There's a secret with these rugged hills, whose slender tops are gray;

There's a secret with the wild flowers that

bloom along the way;

There's a secret with the roaming clouds that change the changeful sky;

A secret have the busy winds, that chant and moan and sigh.

A secret has the moonlight, that touches land and sea,

A secret is between the stars that blink at you and me.

Ah the secrets! can you count them? so num

erous are they!

Ah the secrets! can you find them out? can you find them out, I say?

I knew that some sweet secret 'twixt my garden flowers grew,

But I said, "I know, I feel, it is not for me, or

you."

I felt there was a secret with the wond'rous,

charming sea,

But again I shook my head and said, "That secret's not for me."

Yea, every where I turn my eyes on nature's living show,

I feel there is a secret that 'tis not for me to

know.

LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA.

JOHN C. ROGERS, M. D.

BORN: PERRY, ME., MARCH 26, 1835. THIS gentleman graduated at Harvard in 1863-4, receiving his diploma as a physician. During the civil war he served as assistant surgeon in one of the Massachusetts regiments. At the close of the war he commenced

the practice of medicine in Brooklyn, but in 1866 he returned to Pembroke, where he has since resided practicing his profession. Dr. Rogers can read Latin, Greek, French and German, and is a great lover of poetry. His poems have appeared quite extensively in the periodical press. Dr. Rogers is well known and very popular in his native state.

TWO PICTURES.

Direful visions crowd my soul! Darkness shrouds my aching sight! Horror every sense control

And bar me out from hope and light.

Bathed in an unhallowed fire,

See the Prince of Darkness stand; Round him builds the funeral pyre, That by sin and death is fanned. Lurid lightning pierce the gloom, Awful thunders loudly peal;Demons sound the general doom,From my soul the senses steal.

685

Death, the tyrant, reigns supreme;
Time, the avenger, spurs his steed
To reach earth's bounds, the most extreme;
And harvests life with miser's greed.
Hope and life afar have fled,-

Dismal cries from wrecking pain
Come tumultuous from the dead,
That by time and death are slain.
Fear with horror's crouching form,
Shrinks in awe with bated breath;
Whilst the elements of storm

Rush in madness o'er the earth.

Sheets of lurid lightnings glow,

Blast the shrinking, cowering form! Thunders peal; whilst fierce winds blow,And onward sweeps the maddening storm.

All is darkness, deep, profound,

Silence reigns through every sphere;

Life is dead; no mortal sound

Shall wake in death the startled ear.

Lo! a light from out the gloom
Bursts in glory on my sight;
Thunders in the distance boom,-
Morning breaks in love and light.

On a bright ethereal throne

Borne through Heaven on angels' wings, Stands the Prince of Light, alone

Save the choir that round Him sings.

Death appalled before Him flies,

Darkness shrinks in utter night;

And the dead in myriads rise,

Quickened by the effulgent light. Clothed in an eternal spring,

Earth all radiant now appear; Through the groves the angels sing, Music soothes the raptured ear. Sorrow, care, disease and pain,

Wan despair and sin have fled; They o'er earth no longer reign,They have perished, death is dead! ..God, the Omnipotent, shall reign," Floats upon the ambient air; ..Here His kingdom shall remain, Eternal as the ages are."

Honor, adoration, praise,

Sound triumphant through the skies;
Cherubim sweet anthems raise,-
The song of glory never dies.

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EXTRACT.

I still enjoy the sounding lyre,
Although my youth has lost its fire;
And sometimes tempt a simple lay
To while the lonely hours away.
And though my harp has not the skill
Or art to soar away at will,

I can compose a rhyme with ease,
If not sublime, at least will please.

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