JAMES NEWTON MATTHEWS. OUR UR Poet of the Prairies and the accepted master of verse in the Mississippi Valley lives in southern Illinois, a mile from the typical old time town of Mason. On his own farm, in an idyllic spot smothered in orchards, balmy with the breath of wind-whipped pines, stands his home. Here he lives with a fair, gentle wife and two bright boys. Into this cove of quiet comes troops of friends every season for rest and comradeship. Here gather men and women of national fame to share the medicinal calm of his serene spirit. Here he was born, here for thirty-six years he has lived, and here he will die. He is the physician for the whole country side. The healer, helper, guide and friend of all. He is beloved by everyone for his sympathy and skill. These plain people know little of his far-reaching fame, and wonder why strangers come so far to his door. They sometimes ask if the city folk come to him to be treated. Matthews' poetry is the joint product of his personality and his surroundings. No one else could write it. He could write it nowhere else. His retiring but fearless soul looks out from eyes eloquent and deep as the wells of Gaza. Of medium stature and slight build he wears ever that nameless charm called magnetism. His tenderness impels him to lift a road-weary child into his cart and carry the lad for miles just for love of it. His manly simplicity draws his friends from far and holds them forever. He gathers similes on the shores of life as a child finds shells on the beach. He has treasures of trope and figure but Fancy the falcon sits ever on the wrist of Fact and flies never beyond the tinkle of his silver bell. His choice language ever adorns his chaste thought. He scorns to hang the patched and seamy stable smock of dialect on a noble sentiment, but folds the classic drapery of speech about his thought, as flows the cinctured tunic round the languorous poses of a white-limbed odalisque. He loves Nature in her gentle moods, his eye marks where the tides of spring's new life chafe o'er coral reefs of spice buds into surf of dogwood bloom. His poems are steeped to the lips in summer like poppies in a sea of corn. is an unflagging student, a graduate of the University of Illinois, and has not yet reached the meridian of his powers. His book Tempe Vale, and Other Poems," had a fine sale, and able critics say it has the actual poetic stuff. He A year ago Mr. Matthews' neighbors gave a festival in his honor. Thousands assembled at his home, hundreds of marching children strewed garlands in the way. Noted guests from afar were there; clerics, lawyers, merchants, statesmen, literati attended. It was a spontaneous geyser outflow of the friendship of the west. Amid it all the SHE steers the stars through Heaven's azure deep; She lifts the leaden eyelids of the morn; On distant hills she winds the hunter's horn, And wakes the lonely shepherd from his sleep; She scales the dizzy ledge where torrents leap, And hangs the bloom upon the bristling thorn; And tips the dewy meads with twinkling light. She suns her pinions on the rainbow's rim- She peers, or, through some half-closed lattice, sees Her lover by the wanton night wind kissed. A LEGEND BEAUTIFUL. 'TWAS thus the Dervish spake: "Upon our right, There stands, unseen, an angel with a pen, Who notes down each good deed of ours, and then Seals it with kisses in the Master's sight. Upon our left a sister-angel sweet Keeps daily record of each evil act, But, great with love, folds not the mournful sheet Till deepest midnight, when, if conscienceracked, We lift to Allah our repentant hands, She smiles and blots the record where she stands; A NOCTURNE. ALL things that we can hear or see, Is palpitant with voice and wing, And vibrant with the breathing spring. So softly, spiritu❜lly clear, We seem to feel it-not to hear. The moonlight's luster leaking through The bending blossoms, pearled with dew, We quaff its splendor like a wine. And drowsy perfumes slip and drip From every pansy's pouting lip. Starlight, and melody and dreams! The lover's and the poet's themes, The same that once entranced and won That lulled in old Italian dells On such enchanting nights as these, The ravishment of life that runs We break the seals of sense, and scan The majesty of God and man. THE CRIME. HERE lived the slayer, and there the slain, And all night long the mourners wept; Then a gibbet loomed in the dusky sky, And a blue-eyed orphan pierced the night With desolate sobs, and a mother's cry Outrang the blast, as it whistled by, In its wild, unbridled flight. They laid the slayer not far from the slain, I passed by the crumbling huts, to-day, THE BURDEN OF BABYLON. O BABYLON, O Babylon, The Lord hath made His purpose known; His anger, like a seething sea, Swells at thy gate, And Sodom's fate Alas, proud city, is reserved for thee. O Babylon, O Babylon, Soon, soon, thy glory shall be gone; Beneath thy Godless roofs shall run E'en the warm blood Of motherhood, And none escape His vengeance-nay, not one! O Babylon, O Babylon, Never again as years go on, Shall shepherds fold their flocks by thee; Nor Arab pitch His tent, nor hitch His camel by thy cool pomegranate tree. O Babylon, O Babylon, The winds shall o'er thy ruins moan; Within thy desolated halls, Shall flit the owl, And wild beasts prowl, And dancing satyrs hold their carnivals. DAY AND NIGHT. I WHEN drowsy Day draws round his downy bed The Tyrian tapestries of gold and red, And, weary of his flight, Puts out the palace light, 'Tis night! Where drinks each night the wraith of the flying The road, like a ribbon unspooled, to the mill. steed. -Way Down in Spice Valley. SOLITUDE. 'Way down in Spice Valley, Old Time falls asleep, HARRISON S. MORRIS. ARRISON S. MORRIS was born in Philadel With his head on the sward, in a slumber so deep Hphia in 1956, and almost before he had come That the birds cannot wake him, with melodies blithe, And the long valley-grasses grow over his scythe,— And Summer kneels down in her long golden gown, On a carpet of green, where the skies never frown, 'Way down in Spice Valley. FLY. -Ibid. to years of manhood, gave evidence of that strong poetic sense which has since been a large factor in his life. The Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which did so much to enlarge American ideas, affected Mr. Morris' imagination powerfully, and in the descriptive letters which he contributed to the press at that time may be noted the beginnings of the pictorial power afterwards so finely developed in his verse. Mr. Morris' verse, at first fragmentary, soon attracted attention; it had in it that vital breath of Nature and the testimony of keen delight in her outward manifestations which must ever find an echo in the hearts of humanity; and when in 1883, in conjunction with a literary friend, he published a slender volume with the title: "A Duet in Lyrics," the quality of his verse was felt to be fine in both thought and execution. In common with some of the loftiest of recent poets, Mr. Morris has fallen under the spell of Keats, but though he has absorbed the spirit of that master through the years of loving study which he has given to him, he has retained a strong individuality; his note is distinctly his own, and the felicities of expression with which the reader of his poetry is continually struck are found upon analysis to be the outcome of a wholly original inspiration. The symbolism of Nature appeals strongly to Mr. Morris, and its expression is frequently recurrent in his work, which, though inspired by something deeper and better than a mere desire for metrical correctness, shows a high degree of outward polish and the carefullest craftsmanship. This external finish is especially noticeable in the old French forms into which, in his lighter moods, he has occasionally wandered. Mr. Morris is identified with all that is best in the intellectual life of Philadelphia. He is a member of that literary coterie which is gradually restoring to the city its lost prestige, and to none more than to him may the friends of a true culture look with an abiding confidence. F. H. W. WINTER'S SECRETS. WINTER, thou and I are boon; And the thaw and forest drip, I hold secret fellowship! When the trees stand bleak arow Summer skeletons-I go Down their broken arches singing Songs of snow and tempest wringing; Or I stand upon a rise Underneath the hushéd skies, So to feel the meaning clear Of old each earthly thing of price MATER AUCTUMNA. WHAT of thy sorrows, mother! Are not these Fruition of thy reign: Thy lusty garners, heaped about thy knees, Of corn and russet grain; Thy fatted flocks at nibble in the leas; Thy creaking harvest wain? What of thy sorrows that the blowing trees Interpret into pain? What memory hovers in thy matron eyes What thought of music in the warméd skies; That grew to youth in leafy panoplies, I hear thy sorrow, mother! In the breeze It sings an under-psalm; Deep-toned, it murmurs in the melodies That bubble by the dam; |