HUMAN LIFE.

SAD is our youth, for it is ever going,
Crumbling away beneath our very feet;
Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing,
In current unperceived because so fleet;
Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing,
But tares, self sown, have overtopped the wheat;
Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing;
And still, O still, their dying breath is sweet:
And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us
Of that which made our childhood sweeter still;
And sweet our life's decline, for it hath left us
A nearer Good to cure an older Ill;

And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them

Not for their sake, but His who grants them or denies them.

SONNET-BLESSED IS HE.

BLESSED is he who hath not trod the ways
Of secular delights, nor learned the lore
Which loftier minds are studious to abhor:
Blessed is he who hath not sought the praise
That perishes, the rapture that betrays;
Who hath not spent in Time's vainglorious war
His youth; and found, a schoolboy at fourscore,
How fatal are those victories which raise
Their iron trophies to a temple's height
On trampled Justice; who desires not bliss,

But peace; and yet when summoned to the fight,
Combats as one who combats in the sight
Of God, and of His Angels, seeking this
Alone, how best to glorify the right.

ÆSCHYLUS.

A SEA-CLIFF carved into a base-relief!

Dark thoughts and sad, conceived by brooding

Nature;

Brought forth in storm:-dread shapes of Titan stature,

Emblems of Fate, and Change, Revenge, and Grief,
And Death, and Life: -a caverned Hieroglyph
Confronting still with thunder-blasted frieze
All stress of years, and winds, and wasting seas:-
The stranger nears it in his fragile skiff
And hides his eyes. Few, few shall pass, great Bard,
Thy dim sea-portals! Entering, fewer yet
Shall pierce thy mystic meanings, deep and hard:
But these shall owe to thee an endless debt:
The Eleusinian caverns they shall tread

That wind beneath man's heart; and wisdom learn with dread.

E

MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

VERY poet lives two lives-that of which poetry is the fruit, and that which makes poetic labor possible. The one is æsthetic, the other practical. The first is dependent upon the second for sustenance. For the occupation by which a poet earns his living is often as far removed as possible from the realm of poesy. Yet sometimes the lifework of a poet lies not far from and almost parallel with the track of daily duty. To such an estate Margaret Elizabeth Munson was born, at New Rochelle, Long Island, February 22, 1838. She was principally educated at home, and early displayed a strong literary bent. When twenty years of age she married Mr. George Sangster. The labors of her pen gradually impelled her toward editorial work till in 1871 Mrs. Sangster became associate editor of Hearth and Home, which position she held until 1873. She then accepted a similar chair on The Christian at Work, laboring for that excellent religious weekly for six years. In 1879 Mrs. Sangster transferred her pen to the service of the Christian Intelligencer, which she assisted in editing until 1888, in the meantime, in 1882, assuming the editorial control of Harper's Young People. On the death of Miss Booth, she was, early this year, appointed as the editor of Harper's Bazar, a responsible and lucrative position.

During the entire period of her editorial work Mrs. Sangster has been writing verse. The natural inclination of her mind was toward religious things, and her connection with the press always has been characterized by the exertion of a strong moral influence. Her poetry, like her prose, is oftenest directed to the moral sense, the devotional spirit. The home, the family, and the influences affecting or emanating from domestic shrine and circle, naturally enlist her pen.

Mrs. Sangster's poems that are generally deemed most successful are "Our Own," The Sin of Omission," and "Are the Children at Home?" She has published collections of verse, entitled Poems of the Household," (1883), and "Home Fairies and Heart Flowers," (1887). Beside several books for the Sunday school library, Mrs. Sangster has given the world a Manual of Missions of the Reformed Church in America," (1878). She is still a frequent contributor to the periodical press, her poetry being widely copied whenever it A. G. B.

appears.

OUR OWN.

IF I had known in the morning
How wearily all the day
The words unkind
Would trouble my mind

I said when you went away,

I had been more careful, darling,
Nor given you needless pain ;
But we vex "our own"

With look and tone

We might never take back again.

For though in the quiet evening

You may give me the kiss of peace,
Yet well it might be

That never for me

The pain of the heart should cease. How many go forth in the morning

Who never come home at night;

And hearts have broken

For harsh words spoken,
That sorrow can ne'er set right.

We have careful thought for the stranger,
And smiles for the sometime guest,
But oft for "our own"

The bitter tone,

Though we love our own the best. Ah! lip with the curve impatient; Ah! brow with that look of scorn, 'T were a cruel fate Were the night too late To undo the work of the morn.

MOTH-EATEN.

I HAD a beautiful garment

And I laid it by with care;

I folded it close, with lavender leaves, In a napkin fine and fair :

"It's far too costly a robe," I said, "For one like me to wear."

So never at morn or evening

I put my garment on;

It lay by itself, under clasp and key, In the perfumed dusk alone,

Its wonderful broidery hidden

Till many a day had gone.

There were guests who came to my portal, There were friends who sat with me, And clad in soberest raiment

I bore them company;

I knew I owned a beautiful robe,
Though its splendor none might see.

There were poor who stood at my portal,
There were orphaned sought my care;

I give them the tenderest pity,
But had nothing besides to spare ;
I had only the beautiful garment,
And the raiment for daily wear.

At last, on a feast-day's coming,

I thought in my dress to shine; I would please myself with the luster Of its shifting colors fine;

I would walk with pride in the marvel
Of its rarely rich design.

So out of the dust I bore it-
The lavender fell away-
And fold on fold I held it up

To the searching light of day.
Alas! the glory had perished

While there in its place it lay. Who seeks for the fadeless beauty Must seek for the use that it seals, To the grace of a constant blessing, The beauty that use reveals, For into the folded robe alone The moth with its blighting steals.

THE SIN OF OMISSION.
IT isn't the thing you do, dear,

It's the thing you've left undone,
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun.
The tender word forgotton,

The letter you did not write,
The flower you might have sent, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts to-night.
The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother's way,

The bit of heartsome counsel

You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time nor thought for,
With troubles enough of your own.

The little acts of kindness,
So easily out of mind;
These chances to be angels

Which every mortal finds,-
They come in night and silence,-
Each chill, reproachful wraith,—
When hope is faint and flagging,
And a blight has dropped on faith.
FOR life is all too short, dear,

And sorrow is all too great, To suffer our slow compassion,

That tarries until too late. And it's not the thing you do, dear, It's the thing you leave undone, Which gives you the bit of heartache At the setting of the sun.