Over all, the roof and the dance of the rain.
Not a sorrowing thought, not a touch of pain;
The old farm barn is so dusk and still
The spiders sleep on the window sill:
'Tis the hush, the drowse of the rainy day,
And I'm leaping again from the beam to the hay.

Up, chunky George of the woodchuck race!
Hist, withy Ben, with the chipmunk face!
This way, broad Bill, with the trousers wide!
Come, stumbling Tom, with the big toe tied!-
The scramble is made up the shaky stairs,
Hatless and breathless, we stand in pairs;
Bawling Bob gives the word, and down we go
From the cobwebbed beam to the bay below.
The sport is forbidden, hence double the zest;
More risks than the damage to breeches or vest:
Aha! he's no coward gets sprout, to-day,
For bliss of the leap from the beam to the hay!

Oh, the way of the world, its worry and strife-
The wrestle, the battle, that men call "life"!
On us all, at times, may the noon sun shine,
It may warm to your heart, may warm to mine,
But the joy long gone, though never so small,
Compared with joys present, is worth them all.
The future we know not, but safe is the past,
And the first we loved we love to the last;
The dearer gifts, the longer we live,
Are the quiet joys our memories give:
Ay, back, my heart, to the rainy day—
To the old farm barn and the children at play.

MODERN PROGRESS.

A FEW TECHES ON'T, BY AN OLD FOGY.

WE'RE livin', now, in most trimendious times,
Too wondersome for plain straight-furrid rhymes,
But, I confess, my poor old fogy brain-
It would jest like to ketch a glimpse, again,

Of some things they have whisked clean out of ken,

Upsettin' Natur' and my feller men.

The good old world, I s'pose, is still a ball,
And keeps a-rollin'; 'pon my word, that's all
Remains o''t nat'ral. Once upon a time
'Twas suthin' of a trip from clime to clime;
But any ninny, now, can stand right here
And holler business in a Hindoo's ear.
With ingines, snapagraphs and howlephones
A-muddlin' up the very poles and zones!
Good Lord, is this still Adam's fallen race
So cool annihilatin' time and space,
A-drivin' of the coursers o' the air

As sainted granther did his sorrel mare!
But I would let old mother Natur' go

If they would leave the folks I used to know.
Why, them nussed at the breast of my nativ'

lan',

Half on 'em talks sost I can't understan';
While them fresh critters from a furrin shore,
They'd scared the geese at our old homestead

door.

Now take, for inst', them rattin' almond-eyed-
I thought that sich lived clean on t' other side:
Bless ye, there ain't no t' other side, to-day,
Jess like's not Boston's sot on Bottany Bay.
The times is thunderin' wonderful, I know-
This ere a mixin' up creation so;

But, by my bones! I'd like once more t' enjoy
Them blessin's I was riz to from a boy.
I'd like the reg'lar old religeon back,
Which said we jest must walk the narrer track,
And there an end on't: now, where we're to go
(Maybe some folks are smarter) I don' know.
My Bible might as well be on the shelf;
They've found the world jest up and made itself,
And Christians, even, have fixed the Good Book

over

Until there's leetle left on't but the cover.
No, faith, I'll keep the track my fathers trod,
For all their Sheols and their Nothin'-God.
Great times, it seems, is made of rush and doubt,
But where the great comes in, I hain't found out.
If Natur's done for and religeon, too,

Pray leave me suthin a-ruther 't won't slump

thro'!

Leave, say, a man will find spare time to sit
Him down in his right mind, and chat a bit;
A plain, old-fashioned, homespun, mortal man,
Who allers takes it easy when he can.
Leave me a woman tendin' her own child,
A-lookin' liked they used to when they smiled,
Not makin' on it; leave a good cart-load

Of children which is children till they're growed; Give me some gals, once more, can mind a kitchen,

And tend to suthin' else besides bewitchin';
Some wimmen-folks whose art ain't quite so high
They're clamberin' up, a frescoin' the sky;
Leave boys not all base-ball, or else afloat
In tooth-pick of a college racin'-boat-
Some square-backed boys with heads on, not
them cranes

From York, with a teaspoonful of bran for brains;

Leave me a story-book, 'for I begin it

I know for sure that there's a story in it,

And let me get at least a quarter through one

Before the feller comes out with a new one;
And I'd enjoy, once more, a poet's flutin'
That warn't all zigzag, friskin', hifalutin'.
Leave papers with some readin'-matter in
Betwixt the murders and patent medercin'.
A room I dare set down in if a-faintin',
Some dinner-plates for puddin'—not for paintin';
A doctor not so swamped in his M. D.

His stuff ain't wuth a pinch of raspberry tea.
And let me mention, lest I be forgettin',
Leave me at least one good old hen for settin':
Them han'-made hens may hatch, but, for all
weathers,

I'll stick to an old spreckled hen with feathers.
Well, this will do; with these I'll get along
The few days left. If I have spoke too strong,
This mighty age-it must be mighty kind,
And parding me for freein' of my mind.

JAMES BERRY BENSEL.

AMES BERRY BENSEL was born in New

York City, August 2, 1855. His parents moved to Lynn, Mass., when he was eight years old, and his early education was obtained in the public and private schools of that city. Upon leaving school, he entered a store in Boston, remaining there about a year. After that, on the death of his father, he was clerk for an uncle in Lynn, and later was a clerk in the State Aid Mercantile Commissioner's department, Boston.

life always appeared irksome to him. His literary tastes began to develop, and he occupied a part of his time in giving readings in a number of cities and towns in New England. He afterwards began to publish his writings, mostly poems, his first prose work of any importance, a serial story, entitled "King Cophetua's Wife," appearing in the Overland Monthly in 1882. His early poems appeared in the Transcript, Pilot, Cottage Hearth, and other Boston papers and magazines. Scribner's Magazine published his Forgotten" about 1875.

His mother was Harriet M. Bensel, of whom "Margery Deane" wrote, "Physical pain she knew to that degree that half her days were days Sorrows of of agony, yet she always smiled. every kind touched her, yet her voice never lost its cheery ring. Burdens she carried that the bravest man might well shrink from. Though well and widely connected, her sphere was very limited; yet every hour of her life she was a heroine." It was of such a mother that her son

44

wrote his poems, She and I." and "My Ghost." Speaking of Mr. Bensel's poetry, his friend Oscar Fay Adams wrote at the time of his death, February 2, 1886, Mr. Bensel has died with his work uncompleted. In a little more than a week after his first volume of poems was published, "In the King's Garden and Other Poems," and before he could learn of its favorable reception from all lovers of literary excellence, he was beyond the reach of either praise or blame. He has left behind him only a broken fragment of what he might have done had he been spared to work out the promptings of his genius and the tendencies of which he gave such Mr. Bensel was a poet; he marked indications.

had earned that distinction and no critic would dare question his possession of an artistic poetic temperament capable of producing work that would live in American letters. He had, too, the limitations of a poetic nature-the love of recognition, a hunger for fame, and, perhaps, an undue querulousness toward those who did not accord him the full measure of credit which he felt his work deserved. All his work has been produced under the most unfavorable circumstances and

AND I said, "She is dead, I could not brook
Again on that marvellous face to look."
But they took my hand and they led me in,
And left me alone with my nearest kin.
Once again alone in that silent place,
My beautiful dead and I, face to face.
And I could not speak, and I could not stir,
But I stood and with love I looked on her.
With love, and with rapture, and strange surprise
I looked on the lips and the close-shut eyes;
On the perfect rest and the calm content
And the happiness in her features blent,

And the thin white hands that had wrought so much,

Now nerveless to kisses or fevered touch.
My beautiful dead who had known the strife,
The pain, and the sorrow that we call Life.
Who had never faltered beneath her cross,
Nor murmured when loss followed swift on loss.
And the smile that sweetened her lips alway

Lay light on her Heaven-closed mouth that day.
I smoothed from her hair a silver thread,
And I wept, but I could not think her dead.

I felt, with a wonder too deep for speech,
She could tell what only the angels teach.
And down over her mouth I leaned my ear,
Lest there might be something I should not hear.
Then out from the silence between us stole
A message that reached to my inmost soul.
"Why weep you to-day who have wept before
That the road was rough I must journey o'er?
Why mourn that my lips can answer you not
When anguish and sorrow are both forgot?
Behold, all my life I have longed for rest,-
Yea, e'en when I held you upon my breast.
And now that I lie in a breathless sleep,
Instead of rejoicing you sigh and weep.
My dearest, I know that you would not break-
If you could my slumber and have me wake.
For though life was full of the things that bless,
I have never till now known happiness."
Then I dried my tears, and with lifted head
I left my mother, my beautiful dead.

IN THE RAIN.

THE black clouds roll across the sun,

Their shadows darken all the grass: The songs the sweet birds sang are done, And on wide wings the minstrels pass.

There comes a sudden sheet of rain
That beats the tender field-flowers down,
And in the narrow fragrant lane

The white road turns a muddy brown.

And then the clouds roll slowly back,

The sun again shines fierce and hot, The cows come down the sodden track And munch the wet grass in the lot.

The flowers their moistened faces raise,

The wet leaves in the sunbeams gleam, The birds, refreshed, resume their lays, The children paddle in the stream.

How like to life such days as this!

The brightness and the storm of tears; So much to gain, so much to miss, The sudden overflow of fears.

Yet though the song is hushed awhile,
We know 'twill break forth by-and-by,
We know behind the clouds the smile
Of radiant glory still doth lie.

Oh, let the sudden storm beat low
Our tenderest blossoms as it may!
And let our sweetest song-birds go,
They will return some other day.

We shall forget the sheeted rain

And all that looks so dark and drear, Just as we have forgot the pain

That seemed so hard to us last year.

SYMPATHY.

IN sorrow once there came to me
Two friends to proffer sympathy.
One pressed warm, dewy lips on mine,
And quoted from the word divine:
Wiped the hot tear-drops from my eye
And gave my sore heart sigh for sigh:
Told me of pain he had outgrown-
Pain that was equal to my own,
And left me with a tender touch
That should have comforted me much.
But still my sorrow was no less
For all his loving graciousness.
The other only pressed my hand;
Within his eyes the tears did stand.
He said no word, but laid a rare
Bunch of sweet flowers beside my chair;
And closely held my hand the while
He cheered my sad gloom with his smile.
And ere he went he sang a song
That I had known and loved for long.
And then he clasped my hand again
With the same look that shares a pain.
So when he went I laid my head
Down, and was glad and comforted.
What was the difference, can you tell?
I loved my friends, alike and well;
I loved them both alike, and yet
The one's warm kiss I could forget,
The other's hand-clasp I could feel
For hours through all my being steal.
Each shared my sorrow yet to me
One brought but love, one sympathy.

PENITENCE.

To be penitent

For sin is not enough; the heart must link With penitence its own triumphal song. -My Birthdays.

SIN.

For sin can never be hid so deep

It shall not out from its cover creep,
And ghosts in our hearts do never sleep.

-A Marblehead Legend.