It tells of a battle-field of gore,

Of the sabre's clash, of the cannon's roar,
Of the deadly charge-of the bugle's note,
Of a gurgling sound in a foeman's throat,
Of the wizzing grape-of the fiery shell,
Of a scene which mimics the scenes of hell;
Till this very hour, who could e'er belleve
What a tell-tale thing is an empty sleeve-
What a weird, queer thing is an empty sleeve.

Though it points to a myriad wounds and scars,
Yet it tells that a flag, with the stripes and stars,
In God's own chosen time will take

Each place of the rag with the rattle-snake,
And it points to a time when that flag will wave
O'er a land where there breathes no cowering slave;
To the top of the skies let us all then heave
One proud hurrah for the empty sleeve!
For the one armed man, and the empty sleeve!

HENRY ALEXANDER LAVELY.

H

ENRY ALEXANDER LAVELY was born in East Liberty, Pa., now a part of the city of Pittsburgh, January 16, 1831. In the year 1840, when he was nine years of age, his parents removed to Bakerstown, near the same city. Here he attended a primitive district school, the building being of log, and the teaching quite in accord with the surroundings. He attended school three or four months in the year, and was taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to a limited degree, never having attained to the study of Lindley Murray's grammar. When about eighteen years of age he left home, and went to reside with his uncle, who was engaged in the manufacture of iron in Clarion county, Pa. After remaining in that locality for two or three years he came to Pittsburgh, and secured a position in the freight department of the Pennsylvania railroad, under the late Col. Thomas A. Scott. Although his school advantages had been so limited, he gained a great deal of information from his intercourse with men, and from books. and lectures. He early connected himself with the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association, and the Young Men's Christian Association, of Pittsburgh, and thus secured many advantages. He contributed short poems to the local and New York city press. One of his poems, "Life," was, during the war, appropriated by John H. Surratt (whose mother was hanged for treason), and copied all over the country. The poem by which Mr. Lavely is best known, "The Heart's Choice," was originally published in Our Continent, with illustrations. In 1886 Mr. Lavely collected a number of his poems and published them in a neat volume. While Mr. Lavely's literary taste inclines to poetry, and his library contains the works of all the standard poets, as well as many gems by less. known authors, he is a genuine book lover, and anything rare and choice in either prose or poetry is enjoyed by him, and if possible obtained. In 1871 Mr. Lavely was married to Elizabeth Boothe of Pittsburgh, and their family consists of three daughters. Literary work is to him more of a recreation than a profession, as his business requires most of his time. L. B. L.

THE HEART'S CHOICE. A PAINTER quickly seized his brush And on the canvas wrought The sweetest image of his soul,—

His heart's most secret thought.

A Minstrel gently struck his lyre, And wondrous notes I heard,

For smiles and tears, and sun and rain,
Which kiss thy cheeks with sweet disdain,
Are from the same kind Hand, you know,
Both leaving as they come and go,
A touch of joy or pain.

THE POET,

THE fire had long and fiercely burned,
Till all the dross to gold had turned,
When from his gifted pen their flowed,
As his rapt soul with ardor glowed,
The Word the angles sing above,
The God-revealing Word of Love.

AUTUMN.

THE Woods are tinged with red and gold; The sky hangs crimson o'er the scene; The balmy air-Oh, rapture rare!— Floats, like a benison, between.

THE THREE STAGES.

THE Scent of apple blossoms filled
The balmy evening air,

As Sue and I walked hand in hand,—
A trusting, happy pair.

The scent of golden apples filled

The dreamy autumn air,

As Sue and I walked hand in hand,A wedded, happy pair.

The scent of apple butter filled
The cosy dining-room,

As Sue and I danced hand to hand,
Around the kitchen broom!

PAST.

THE Voices of the Past, in varied tones,
Speak to my soul to-night and will not hush;
A thousand deeds they whisper of the years,—
The long forgotten years-when life was young,
And Joy and Hope were linked with golden
chains;

And every pulse beat music to the heart,
And every breath was drawn in Faith and Love.
-A Reverie.

LILIAN BLANCHE FEARING.

L'

ILIAN BLANCHE FEARING is native of Davenport, Iowa, and that picturesque point on the banks of the Mississippi is still her home. In noting that the twenty-four years of her life have been chiefly spent in this Westerly section of America, it must be remembered that the environment there afforded is exceptional and not easily definable.

Miss Fearing began to write in verse as soon as she could write at all, and when only nine years old she was first introduced to the public by the appearance of her poetic compositions in the Young Folks Monthly, of Chicago. Frequently after this she gained prizes offered by juvenile periodicals for writings in verse. In 1877, when thirteen years of age she was placed in the Iowa College for the Blind, at Vinton, Iowa, and was graduated from there in 1884. Her overflow of spirits, her quick understanding, retentive memory and remarkable powers of expression, made her record as a pupil a brilliant one.

In 1886 her volume, entitled "The Sleeping World and other Poems" was published. It has attracted complimentary attention from many of the best American critics. The note of sadness which is suppossed to be so pronounced in her writtings does not spring from melancholy but from earnestness of temperament and an intense spiritual consciousness. This richness of inner experience is a valued guaranty of the increasing exercise and noble development of lyric power. M. S.

A THOUGHT.

It fell at night upon a rocking world

As sinks through glooms of eve a falling star; God launched it upon Time with wings unfurled, And marked its flight through centuries afar.

As fell that spirit bright on Lemnos isle;
As Phaeton, fell from Phoebus' blazing car;
As from an angel's lip, a holy smile

Slides like a sunbeam from a world afar,

So on the dim earth fell that shining thought:
Like shooting-star it flashed along the brain
Of one who flushed to feel the strength it brought,
And shaped it for a world's eternal gain.

On prophet brows the chrismal light falls still; They break for us through calyxes of doubt, Through leaf-like thought o'er-folding thought,

until

The single golden heart of Truth shines out.