Can one weigh the baby's wiles, Witching ways and cunning smiles? Can you weigh each hope and prayer, Or the love that's woven fast 'Round her while our lives shall last? Can you weigh the fair young soul, Op'ning like a spotless scroll? Only God's unerring gaze, Sees how much our darling weighs. MARGARET. When you passed me yesterday, Did your memory like a dream, Did you see the roses white, Are your hot-house flowers as sweet LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA. IDA MAY DAVIS. BORN: LA FAYETTE, IND., 1858. MRS. DAVIS has written for many leading magazines and newspapers, among which might be mentioned the Chicago Inter Ocean, IDA MAY DAVIS. Chicago Current and Indianapolis Journal. She is of medium hight, with brown hair and hazel eyes, and now resides in Terre Haute, Indiana. EVENING SONG. Farewell, sweet day, Thy thoughts and mine in perfect tune; And rhyme have blent this day of June, And ere the rapture of thy spell Dissolves, I turn to thee and say, Sweet day, farewell. Farewell, sweet day, For I would rather part from thee With every chord in harmony Than meet thee in the cold, gray light Of morrow's morn. Thus, glad I say, Sweet day, goodnight. A MEMORY. The rose's heart is red, so red; The thrush's song is sweet, so sweet; The river lies, a flame of blue, The morn is golden and complete. I hear her voice amid the reeds, My name, across the echoing wold. On wings of wind is borne to me. I reach out ah! my rose-red dream! Gray shreds of gauze in ochre light Spread slow along the water's trail, Into the olive veii of night. It must have been the friendly breeze, With magic touch upon my brain. With voice soft soughing thro' the trees, That brought me thee, O love, again. THE ROSE. I, the rose, am glad to-day, Slumbering in the summer heat. I heard my lady, joyous say, ..I'll wear this rose of fragrance sweet, When I, my guests invited meet." And she will place me, soft caressed, Strange fingers plucked me yester night, They said an uninvited guest, With smiling lips. Thro' pale moonlight, They measured steps, with sound supprest, And laid me softly on her breast, A HARMONY. The dawn's unfolding wings the breeze fret, Kissing the gentian's slumbrous eyelids swift; Her silk-fringed lashes with the dewdrops wet, Quivering 'neath the sun's bright glance, uplift. The bee, hid in the trumpet-blossom's spire, Reels to the chimes within its nodding cells. The trembling hollyhock's red chalices of fire Rock with the unseen ringer of their bells. O'er purple clematis the butterfly Hovers to taste the sweetness from its lips: And all the opal tints of sun and sky Are drank in rainbow colors that he sips. The reeds that grow down by the crystal spring, Meeting the morning breezes from the sea, Their matutinal lays are offering In notes that might awake sad Niobe. The ripples from the brook, where bluedragons Upon its bosom clear reflected float, Are like the soft-voiced ring-dove's carillons, Or silvery laughter from a young girl's throat. And every swaying stem keeps time complete, 62 LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA. 63 MRS. FRANCES L. MACE. BORN: ORONO, ME., JAN. 15, 1836. THE poems of this lady have appeared in the Century, Atlantic, Lippincott's, Harper's and the leading magazines of America. In 1884 appeared a volume of over two hundred pages from her pen, entitled Legends, Lyrics and Sonnets; and in 1888, Under Pine and Palm, a magnificient volume of her collected poems. MRS. FRANCES LAUGHTON MACE. She was married in 1855 to Benjamin H. Mace, a prominent lawyer and scholar. Mrs. Mace lives at San Jose, under the smiling skies of California. At the age of eighteen she wrote her celebrated hymn, Only Waiting, which was copied through the length and breadth of the land. Mrs. Mace is a handsome, stately woman, with a truly artistic temperament, and has four children now living. ONLY WAITING. Only waiting till the shadows Are a little longer grown, Only waiting till the glimmer Of the day's last beam is flown; Till the night of earth is faded From this heart once full of day, Till the dawn of Heaven is breaking Through the twilight soft and gray. Only waiting till the reapers Have the last sheaf gathered home, For the summer-time hath faded And the autumn winds are come. Quickly, reapers, gather quickly The last ripe hours of my heart For the bloom of life is withered, And I hasten to depart. Only waiting till the angels Open wide the mystic gate, At whose feet I long have lingered, Weary, poor, and desolate. Even now I hear their footsteps And their voices far away: If they call me I am waiting,Only waiting to obey. Only waiting till the shadows Are a little longer grown, Only waiting till the glimmer Of the day's last beam is flown; Then from out the folded darkness Holy, deathless stars shall rise, By whose light my soul will gladly Wing her passage to the skies. VIOLETS. I know a spot where woods are green, The brook sings and the birds reply: The purple blossoms breathe delight, Close nestled to the grassy sedge As sweet as dawn, as dark as night. O brook and branches, far away, I sometimes dream that when at last EBB AND FLOW. My river! Thou art like the poet's soul, Where tides of song perpetual ebb and flow. Like thine the current of his life runs low At times, his visions suffer loss and dole, And sunken griefs break through the water's shoal. Then while despair is tossing to and fro His stranded hope, a breath begins to blow From the great sea! With rising swell and roll The waves of inspiration lift and float His being into broad and full expanse. Now rocks his fancy like an airy boat On wreathed billows; his impassioned glance Little of cloud or reef or wreck will note, On the high tide of song in blissful trance. 64 LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA. LOTUS-EATING. These perfect days were never meant For toil of hand or brain, But for such measureless content As heeds no loss nor gain; Close held to Nature's flowery breast The wild bird's drowsy warble seems That ever-daring deeds were done, In some primeval world, O world, to-day in vain you hold A fruit of heavenly balm, THE RAINBOW. Bridge of enchantment! for a moment hung Between the tears of earth and smiles of heaven, Surely the sheen of jasper, sapphire, gold, Dear in each sign and symbol of the past THE ANGELUS. Ring soft across the dying day, Angelus! Across the amber-tinted bay, The meadow flushed with sunset ray, Ring out and float and melt away, Angelus. The day of toil seems long ago, Angelus! While through the deepening vesper glow, Thy beckoning bell-notes rise and flow, Through dazzling curtains of the west, We see a shrine in roses dressed, Oh, has an angel touched the bell, Angelus? For now upon its parting swell ECHO LAKE. In sunset beauty lies the lake, A limpid, lustrous splendor! The mists which wrapped the mountain break, And Storm Cliff's rugged outlines take An aspect warm and tender. Now listen! for a spirit dwells Hail to thee! Hail to thee! Sad Echo, mocked of all her kind, O Echo, we return no more; Echo! Farewell! TEARS OF ISIS. When Isis, by true mother love oppressed, LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. BORN: CAMBRIDGE, MASS., AUG. 29, 1809. THIS great scholar is equally noted as a poet, novelist, essayist, and physician. He is considered one of the most witty, originai and brilliant writers of the present day. Educated partly at Phillips academy, he graduated at Harvard when twenty years of age. Young Oliver then spent a vear in studying law: but OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. the subject of this sketch very soon abandoned the law in order to enter upon the study of medicine, which course he pursued in Europe, chiefly in Paris. In 1836 Mr. Holmes returned to America, took the degree of M. D., and two years later he became professor of anatomy and physiology in Dartmouth college, which position he held until the time of his marriage, in 1840, when he removed to Boston, and there won much success as a practicing physician. In 1847 he was appointed to the chair of anatomy and physiology in Harvard - the seat of the medical department of this university being in Boston-a post which he has filled with honor until 1882. While Dr. Holmes has won distinction not only as a professional man and a writer on subjects related to his profession, he is best known to the public by his purely literary productions. During the year 1830, while studying law, he contributed a number of witty poems to a col 6.5 lege periodical. Dr. Holmes was one of the founders of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, to which he contributed from time to time; and in the pages of this periodical first appeared The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. His lyrics, such as Old Ironsides, Union and Liberty, Welcome to the Nations, and others, are not only spirited, but also the most beautiful in our language; and his humorous poems, including The One-Hoss Shay, Lending an Old Punch-Bowl, My Aunt, The Boys, and many others, are characterized by a vivacious and sparkling wit which makes their drollery irresistible. His prose works are greatly admired, the best of which are The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, The Professor at the Breakfast Table, The Poet of the Breakfast Table, and the novels Elsie Venner, and the Guardian Angel. 64 Dr. Holmes," says John G. Whittier, "has been likened to Thomas Hood; but there is little in common between them, save the power of combining fancy and sentiment with grotesque drollery and humor. Hood, under all his whims and oddities, conceals the vehement intensity of a reformer. The iron of the world's wrongs has entered into his soul. There is an undertone of sorrow in his lyrics. His sarcasm, directed against oppression and bigotry, at times betrays the earnestness of one whose own withers have been wrung. Holmes writes simply for the amusement of himself and his readers. He deals only with the vanities, the foibles, and the minor faults of mankind, goodnaturedly and almost sympathizingly suggesting excuses for folly, which he tosses about on the horns of his ridicule. Long may he live to make broader the face of our care-ridden generation, and to realize for himself the truth of the wise man's declaration, that A merry heart is a continual feast!'' THE LAST LEAF. I saw him once before The pavement-stones resound They say, that in his prime, Not a better man was found But now he walks the streets, Sad and wan; And he shakes his feeble head, |