G GEORGE MEREDITH. EORGE MEREDITH was born in Hampshire, England, in 1828. His parents died when he was quite young, and he obtained his education as a ward in chancery. His education was received mostly in Germany, hence the Teutonic influence on all he has written. Intended for the profession of law, he soon abandoned it for literature. For many years his life was a hand to hand struggle with poverty in its harshest form. Early married to a daughter of Thomas Love Peacock the novelist, the union proved a very unhappy one lasting twelve years, and ended with his wife's death. Mr. Meredith's second wife died three years ago. By the first marriage he had one son, now living in Italy. By the second marriage a son, twenty-three, and a daughter, eighteen years old, now living with him in his pretty little cottage in one of the valleys of Surrey Downs. Mr. Meredith was naturally robust, but after sixty years of life in which the trials and sorrows were many, and the joys few he is described as being in delicate health. Mr. Meredith is best known as a novelist, and is considered one of the greatest living writers of English fiction. In poetry he is original but obscure. Has been called "the Inarticulate Poet." It is only within the past few years that his poems have attracted any considerable attention in this country. C. W. M. THE TWO MASKS. MELPOMENE among her livid people, Ere stroke of lyre, upon Thaleia looks, Warned by old contests that one museful ripple Along those lips of rose with tendril hooks, Forebodes disturbance in the springs of pathos, Perchance may change of masks midway demand, Albeit the man rise mountainous as Athos, The woman wild as Cape Leucadia stand. For this the Comic Muse exacts of creatures But prove they under stress of action's fire HARD WEATHER. BURSTS from a rending East in flaws To strew the garden, strip the shaws, And show our Spring with banner torn. Was ever such virago morn? The wind has teeth, the wind has claws. Shrill underfoot the grassblade shrews, Is the land ship? we are rolled, we drive It peeps, it becks; 'tis day, 'tis night. The swathe is closed, like shroud on corse. Lo, as if swift the Furies flew, Interpret me the savage whirr: Look in the face of men who fare To twist with him and take his bruise. Of Earth, young mother of her brood: Though farther from her nature rude, The common strokes of fortune shower. Our wits may clasp to wax in power. Than when her honeyed hands caressed, Behold the life at ease; it drifts. The sharpened life commands its course. Whence pluck they brain, her prize of gifts, Not disconnected, yet released, Which Measure tames to movement sane, WHIMPER OF SYMPATHY. So hard it seems that one must bleed O it were pleasant, with you To fly from this tussle of foes, The shambles, the charnel, the wrinkle! THE QUESTION WHITHER. I. WHEN We have thrown off this old suit, Is that, think you, our ending? Must flower above the surface. II. Sensation is a gracious gift, But were it cramped to station, The prayer to have it cast adrift, Would spout from all sensation. Enough if we have winked to sun, Have sped the plough a season; There is a soul for labor done, Endureth fixed as reason. III. Then let our trust be firm in Good, Are in its being sharers; And Whither vainer sounds than Whence, For word with such wayfarers. A BALLAD OF PAST MERIDIAN. LAST night returning from my twilight walk II. Death said, I gather, and pursued his way. And metal veins that sometimes fiery shone: O Life, how naked and how hard when known! Life said, As thou hast carved me, such am I. Does she leave lamentation for chaps without sense? Howsoever, she's made up of wonderful stuff. Ay, the soul in her body must be a stout cord: She sings little hymns at the close of the day, Though she has but three fingers to lift to the Lord, And only one leg to kneel down with to pray. VI. What I ask is, Why persecute such a poor dear, Irreligious I'm not; But I look on this sphere man. It isn't fair dealing! But, contrariwise, Do bullets in battle the wicked select? Why, then it's all chance-work! And yet, in her eyes, She holds a fixed something by which I am checked. VII. Yonder riband of sunshine aslope on the wall, If you eye it a minute 'll have the same look: So kind! and so merciful! God of us all! It's the very same lesson we get from the Book. Then, is Life but a trial? Is that what is meant? Some must toil, and some perish, for others below; The injustice to each spreads a common content; Ay! I've lost it again, for it can't be quite so. VIII. She's the victim of fools: that seems nearer the mark. On earth there are engines and numerous fools. Why the Lord can permit them, we're still in the dark; He does, and in some sort of way they're his tools. It's a roundabout way, with respect let me add, IX. But the worst of me is, that when I bow my head, I perceive a thought wriggling away in the dust, And I follow its tracks, quite forgetful, instead, Of humble acceptance: for, question I must! Here's a creature made carefully-carefully made! Put together with craft, and then stamped on, and why? The answer seems nowhere: it's discord that's played. The sky's a blue dish!-an implacable sky! Stop a moment. I seize an idea from the pit. Is the Universe one immense Organ, that rolls From devils to angels? I'm blind with the sight. It pours such a splendor on heaps of poor souls! I might try at kneeling with Molly to-night. EARTH'S SECRET. NOT solitarily in fields we find Earth's secret open, though one page is there; Yet at a thought of life apart from her, For Earth, that gives the milk, the spirit gives. MY THEME. I. Of me and of my theme think what thou wilt: He grasps a blade, not always by the hilt. 'Tis true the wisdom that my mind exacts Yet they seem choicer than your sons of facts, HORATIO NELSON POWERS. L OVERS of simple, genuine, and unmeretricious verse, associate the name of Horatio Nelson Powers with some of the best short poems that have appeared in American periodicals during the last two or three decades. Those who know the personality behind the name, recall a man of genial and dignified presence, of scholarly culture and kindly sympathies, whose friendship is at once a pleasure and an inspiration. A clergyman whose busy life has been largely devoted to the duties of his chosen calling, Dr. Powers has yet found time for the exercise of that literary talent and that wide range of intellectual activity that have given him name and influence far beyond the boundaries of his professional career. The latter may be briefly traced. Born in Amenia, Dutchess County, New York, in 1826, he was graduated at Union College in 1850, and at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in New York City, in 1855. He was ordained in Trinity Church, New York, by Bishop Horatio Potter, and immediately entered upon the work of the ministry, as assistant to the Rev. Dr. (afterward Bishop) Samuel Bowman, rector of St. James's Church, Lancaster, Pa. Two years later (in 1857) he accepted a call to a parish at Davenport, Iowa, where he remained eleven years. In 1868 he became rector of St. John's Church, Chicago, continuing there until 1875, when he was called to Christ Church, Bridgeport, Conn. This charge he retained for ten years, removing in 1885 to Piermont-on-theHudson, where he still resides as rector. The scenery about Piermont is romantic and inspiring; and in a beautifully situated and pleasant parsonage built for him last year, and amidst harmonious surroundings, Dr. Powers, in the ripeness and maturity of his life, has a full measure of that peace and happiness which he merits and is so well fitted to enjoy. Some charming glimpses of the region where he lives, and of his life there, are given in a little poem entitled "My Walk to Church," published in Harper's Monthly last year, which readers will be glad to find reprinted in the present issue of this magazine. The poem is interesting also as showing in a marked degree what are perhaps Dr. Powers's most noticeable characteristics of a poet-a feeling for Nature, that is Wordsworthian in its depth and tenderness; a contemplative habit that sees the spiritual meaning of even the humblest things; and a cheerfulness and youthfulness of heart that keeps him ever young and sensitive to all beautiful forms and thoughts. No one can read "My Walk to Church," and others of his poems in the same sweet key, without feeling that the author in indeed one of those to whom |