G

GEORGE W. WEBSTER.

EORGE W. WEBSTER was born in Geneva, Ohio, May 5, 1860. He has always lived in his native town, with the exception of four years which he spent in Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, from which institution he took the degree of A. B. with the class of 1885. For at least six months of his life he was obliged to forego all exercise, both of mind and body, on account of rheumatism. His taste for books and study of all kinds developed very late. He never read a book that he enjoyed till he was fourteen years old. That book was Longfellow's Poems, given him by a teacher for receiving the most head-marks in his spelling class. For the love of the teacher he read the book; for the love of that book he has read a good deal. His first attempt at writing verse was made in his nineteenth year and was very crude, both in thought and melody. In school his preference was for plane geometry; next to it came psychology and ethics. His life has always been very quiet. He has never seen much of the world. Some of his poems have appeared in various Boston publications. The greater part of them have not been in print. C. W. M.

MY SEASON.

WHEN chestnut burrs grow brusque and brown, And laughing shower their treasures down; When vagrant boys, with loaded sticks,

Go bent upon their thievish tricks;

When the brown monk with cloak, dark-streaked,
Runs slyly homeward, swollen-cheeked;
When every corner of the fence,

By shucks, and husks, bears evidence

Of revels held at my expense;
It is my season.

When leaves are brown, gold, green and red,
And the year's foliage is half shed;
When winter apples hang at prime,
A rustle tells of husking time,
The hickory drops its hollow shield,
And the farmer gossips about his yield;
When now and then a cold, wet day
Drives out-door joys and cares away,
And gives me and my thoughts a play;
It is my season.

WINTER'S TEMPLE.

I WALKED one day among great drifts of snow, Like houses, built for the storm-children's sport;

But, as I looked again, it seemed not so.
In spotless white, fantastic forms were drawn,
As if some genius swift designed a court
And castle, worthy of the fair-cheeked Dawn.

Volute, modillion, cornice and festoon,
Aye! countless graces of the builder's art,
Splendid in promise, everywhere were strewn,
As though the sculptor waited cooler hours,
A steadier hand, distrustful of the heart,
To smooth and fit and rear his lofty towers.

With stealthy foot I sought the youthful sprite;
For young, methought, must be such fancy wild;
But, searching long, I found an old man white
Bowed down with years, and dumb with present woe.
Him I addressed. To my surprise, he smiled
And shook his long uncombèd locks of snow.

66

"I know the questions you would ask," said he;
And, since my heart not holds no longer boon,
The partner of its hopes, close privacy;
I'll tell you of these sketches, roughly dight,
While all my heart did glow, as if the moon,
With silent, full-orbed glory, filled my night.

Last eve I felt Spring's warm breath in the air,
And, fain to win her as she came this way,
Till dawn I wrought upon a temple fair,
That I might shrine her there, my youthful spouse,
To cheer my heart against the dreary day;
But she hath passed, and let the spirit drowse."

LINES.

WRITTEN ON HEARING A DAY-BIRD SING ABOUT MIDNIGHT.

WHAT thoughts disturb thy downy rest?
My pretty singer, say

Dost dream that thou must out of nest,
To greet the rising day?

Why lookest toward the waking hours? I prithee little bird!

Art thou not with more songful powers, In shadowy past land stirred?

Or dost thou watch, with sleepless eye, From midnight's vantage ground, Atop thy citadel so high,

The freighted hours go round?

If so, pray scan their ships for me,
Those dropping out of sight,
And those, that o'er the eastern sea,
Come sailing into light.

Aye, look my bird, if thou 'rt awake,
And sing me, which is best;
And I will read thy song, and take
My dream-way, east or west.

TWO SONNETS.

I. PIANISSIMO.

A LIGHT and gentle hand doth touch the keys,
And mellowed echoes come from far away,
As if a white-robed virgin, on her knees,

Prayed God to send again the "golden day." Aye! peace shall come, pure soul, when hope and joy

Shall mingle in the world, as in thy voice; When noon shall cease the day-spring to decoy; When hopeful hearts in present things rejoice. Touch lighter, lighter still, the subtile chord, Else shall thy heart be like the restless world, And discord rise to meet an angered Lord,

And peace forever from the earth be hurled. Now, o'er my heart the peaceful spell doth grow, Methinks the dawn is near; play low, play low.

WIL

WILLIAM BURT HARLOW.

VILLIAM BURT HARLOW was born in Portland, Maine, April 4, 1856. His father, William Harlow, was also born in Portland, but his grandfather came from Plymouth, Mass., where Sergeant William Harlow, the first of the family in this country, settled in 1637. The Harlows came originally from the village of Harlow, in Essex county, England. The mother of the subject of this sketch was Julia L. Burt, of Longmeadow, Mass. She was a direct descendant of LieutenantColonel Nathaniel Burt, who fell in the battle of Lake George, September 8, 1777. In 1861 William Harlow moved his family from Portland to Syracuse, N. Y.

William B. Harlow, after completing the public school course at Syracuse, entered Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1879. In 1880 he was appointed Professor of English Literature, Composition and Rhetoric in the Syracuse High School. In 1884 he published a work entitled "Early English Literature, from the Day of Beowulf to Edmund Spenser," and in 1890 a book of poems "Songs of Syracuse," relating mostly to scenes and incidents in and around this beautiful city of Central New York. During the summer of 1884 he made a tour of Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium. In 1886 he crossed the continent and spent some time in Colorado, Utah, California and Oregon. In 1871 he journeyed through Canada and visited Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. In 1888 he again crossed the Atlantic, and this time devoted his attention to the British Isles. The lake regions of Scotland and northern England, the mountains of Wales and the cities of Ireland were of special interest to him. In 1885 the degrees of A. M. and Ph. D. were conferred upon him, for literary work, by the Syracuse University. articles and poems have from time to time been published in Science, Education, the New York Tribune, the Christian Register, the Academy, New England Journal of Education, and in several of the Syracuse daily papers. He is still residing in Syracuse.

KENILWORTH.

IN hoary Kenilworth we wander yet,

D. F. M.

His

Where good Queen Bess and courtly Leicester met;
And mounting now the winding stair we find
The tiny room where Amy Robsart pined;
The narrow windows in the massive wall,
The bare stone floor so cheerless to the fall

Of footsteps; far below the roofless hall,
Once gay with lords and ladies at the feast;
The minstrel harps that sounded, long have ceased;
The tower of John of Gaunt looks grimly down
On silent court, where games of great renown,
With baiting of the bear, twelve days were held,
One royal Christmas in the times of eld.

LODORE.

A SABBATH day, by musical Lodore-
From heathery hills the gathered waters pour
Down rocky steeps, where moss and ivy creep;
At last the noisy torrents peaceful sleep
Within the bosom of that silvery lake,

The Derwentwater, which the mountains make,
A mirror to reflect each rugged height;
Here Wordsworth and wrapt Coleridge took delight
In lifelong rambles by the tarns and streams,
Where gentle Nature weaves her fairest dreams.

TO A BUTTERFLY HATCHED IN FEBRUARY.

THOU airy spirit that hath burst
Thy darksome prison bands,
Of summer's angels, thou the first,
Would'st float o'er sunny lands.

The honey dew of earthly flowers, Fond one, thou seek'st in vain; Alas! no magic art is ours,

To give what thou would'st gain.

Soul's emblem, thou wast born to pain,

Fair Psyche with bright wings; Thou o'er some gentle heart would'st reign, While yet the storm wind sings.

Ere blustering blasts have o'er thee blown,
Or ere those wings would rest;
Flit, fairy, to the world unknown;
Where cherished hopes are blest.

Feathery yarrow leaves and clover,
Yellow mustard, tall and rank.
Strawberries and dandelions,

In this sweet confusion spring,
Butterflies above it floating,—

Two white spirits on the wing. Solitary insects skating,

Where the pools are smooth and clear;
Blooming apple-trees low bending;
From the grass rise teazles sere.

Golden ripples on the water,
Caught by pebbles down below;
Purling murmurs o'er the rock bed;
With the stream my fancies flow.

TO A WATER-LILY.

SWEET, perfect flower, that from the stagnant pool,
Morn's silent hour has waked to fragrance cool!
That lily-pad, thy table green is spread;
The pearls of dew and sunshine are the bread
That like a royal banquet waits for you.
Those snowy petals opening to the blue,
Disclose the haunt of many a golden sprite;
A ring of fairies dancing in delight
Around the bed where still their playmates sleep,
And from their fluttering garments perfumes creep.
Borne from the grottoes where those naiads dwell,
Ere they arise within the circling shell,

To greet the world and gladden mortal eyes,
Or throng the mind with airy fantasies.
Thou vision of a fair and radiant life,
Through many a weary day of pain and strife,
Far down in gloomy depths of mire and ooze,
From dross of earth thou but the good did'st
choose,

And wakened it to beauteous being pure.
So now the glorious summer comes to lure
That green sheathed bud up to a brighter world!
O'er sin triumphant thou hast how unfurled
Those spotless leaflets to a golden dawn,
That ushers in thy resurrection morn.