VOL. I.

NO. 3.

MARY MAPES DODGE.

HE child-literature of a few years ago referred

which the fairy and the griffin, the giant and the gnome held sway, and humanity seemed to be gauged by its relation to those fabulous characters of romantic fiction. Following the general movement of the times the writings for children are now largely contemporary in subject, matter and manner. Books for young people and juvenile periodical literature now present an immense range of studies in human life almost to the exclusion of the purely fanciful or fabulous. Boys and girls now study other boys and girls very like themselves, but in environments sometimes almost as strange as those in which Jack the Giant-Killer acted his cyclus of heroic dramas.

In this new literature of youth Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge has shared so liberally, has wrought so diligently, and has led so valiantly that she may justly be regarded as having impressed her own individuality on the child-letters of America to a degree not reached, perhaps, by any other female writer. Her position as the editor of a leading young people's monthly magazine would alone extend her influence far beyond that of the mere writer of children's books; while her writings in prose and verse place her in the front rank of the authors who have enriched English literature in a field that for centuries was almost barren. Mrs. Dodge was born in New York City, in 1838. Her father, Professor James J. Mapes, was a private tutor in that city and known as a scientist and author, and we may believe that in childhood she breathed a literary atmosphere. She was early married to William Dodge, a lawyer of high standing, and left a widow with two sons, one of whom, James Mapes Dodge, has become a successful inventor. She soon turned to literature. With such writers as Donald G. Mitchell and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Dodge was one of the earliest editorial writers on the Hearth and Home, and for several years conducted the children's department of that magazine. She wove her fireside stories, told to her boys, into the tales which have made her famous, and has been the

editor of St. Nicholas from the first number of that superb periodical.

Mrs. Dodge's prose writings have been much more voluminous than her verse, but the poetry she has written is among the best of its class. Much of it has been gathered in two volumes: 'Rhymes and Jingles," (1874) for children, and "Along the Way," (1879) for adult readers. She has scattered many other gems "along the way"-a way that no English-speaking boy or girl, of whatever age, can fail to travel with profit and delight. A. G. B.

ENFOLDINGS.

THE Snowflake that softly, all night, is whitening tree-top and pathway;

The avalanche suddenly rushing with darkness and death to the hamlet.

The ray stealing in through the lattice to waken the day-loving baby;

The pitiless horror of light in the sun-smitten reach of the desert.

The seed with its pregnant surprise of welcome young leaflet and blossom;

The despair of the wilderness tangle, and treacherous thicket of forest.

The happy west wind as it startles some noonladen flower from its dreaming;

The hurricane crashing its way through the homes and the life of the valley.

The play of the jetlets of flame when the children laugh out on the hearth-stone;

The town or the prairie consumed in a terrible, hissing combustion.

The glide of a wave on the sands with its myriad sparkle in breaking;

The roar and the fury of ocean, a limitless maelstrom of ruin.

The leaping of heart unto heart with bliss that can never be spoken;

The passion that maddens, and shows how God may be thrust from His creatures.

For this do I tremble and start when the rose on the vine taps my shoulder,

For this when the storm beats me down my soul groweth bolder and bolder.

ONCE BEFORE.

ONCE before, this self-same air

Passed me, though I know not where.
Strange! how very like it came!
Touch and fragrance were the same;
Sound of mingled voices, too,
With a light laugh ringing through;
Some one moving-here or there-
Some one passing up the stair,
Some one calling from without,
Or a far-off childish shout;—
Simple, home-like, nothing more,
Yet it all hath been before!

No. Not to-day, nor yesterday,
Nor any day. But far away-
So long ago, so very far,

It might have been on other star.
How was it spent? and where? and when?
This life that went, yet comes again?
Was sleep its world, or death its shore?
I still the silent Past implore.
Ah! never dream had power to show
Such vexing glimpse of Long Ago.
Never a death could follow death

With love between, and home, and breath.

The spell has passed. What spendthrifts we,
Of simple, household certainty!
What golden grain we trample low
Searching for flowers that never grow!
Why, home is real, and love is real;
Nor false our honest high ideal.
Life, it is bounding, warm and strong,
And all my heart resounds with song.
It must be true, whate'er befall,
This, and the world to come are all.
And yet it puzzles me-alack!
When life that could not be, comes back!

THE TWO MYSTERIES.

"In the middle of the room, in its white coffin, lay the dead child, a nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little

She

ones, and holding a beautiful little girl on his lap. looked wonderingly at the spectacle of death, and then inquiringly into the old man's face. You don't know what it is, do you, my dear?' said he, and added, We don't either.""

We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so deep and still;

The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so pale and chill;

The lids that will not lift again, though we may call and call;

The strange, white solitude of peace that settles over all.

I listen to the plashing, clear and faint;
Now sharp against the stones that slide it back,
Now soft and nestling in a mossy track,
Or rocking in an eager, homeless plaint,

Or stified in the ooze, whose yielding is restraint.

Nature's deep lessons come in silences,

Or sounds that fall like silence on our sense; And so this piashing secks my soul's pretense, And bids it say what its fulfillment is, And bares to searching light its fond alliances

I cannot fathom all my soul doth hide,

Nor sound the centers that the waves conceal; Yet in a dim, half-yearning way I feel The urging of the low, insistent tide,

Till the plashing seems like sobbing, and the sky grows cold and wide.

OVER THE WORLD.

THERE is a time between our night and day,

A space between this world and the unknown, Where none may enter as we stand alone Save the one other single soul that may; Then is all perfect if the two but stay.

It is the time when, the home-evening flown, And "good-nights" sped in happy household

tone,

We look out from the casement ere we pray.
Into the world of darkness deep and far

We gaze-each depth with its own deepest star,
That brightens as we turn, nor yet recedes
When we would search it with our sorest

needs,

O holy living-ground from heaven won!
O time beyond the night when day is done!

WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS. Two little sorrel blossoms, pale and slender, Lean to each other in the cool, tall grass; The crowding spears with gallant air and tender, Shield them completely from the sun's fierce splendor,

Till harmlessly an angry wind might pass. And I stand smiling with a sudden whim: "The little innocents! Now am I sure

They think them in a forest grand and dim, The mighty grass coeval with their birth,Shut from the world, from every ill secure, And where their thicket ends, there ends the earth!"

ALL day the Princess ran away,

All day the Prince ran after;

The palace grand and courtyard gray

Rang out with silvery laughter.

"What, ho!" the King, in wonder, cried,

"What means this strange demeanor?"

"Your Majesty," the Queen replied,
"It is the Philopena!

Our royal daughter fears to stand
Lest she takes something from his hand;
The German Prince doth still pursue,
And this doth cause the sweet ado."
Then, in a lowered voice, the King:
"I'll wage he hath a weeding ring.
Our royal guest is brave and fair
They'd make, methinks, a seemly pair!"

But still the Princess ran away,

And still the Prince ran after,

While palace grand and courtyard gray Rang out with silvery laughter.