FEW

THERON BROWN.

EW poets have done so much really inspired, excellent and popular work for periodicals, without its being collected into a permanent volume, as Rev. Theron Brown. A poet should not publish a volume, as a rule, until the public call for it, and there is a public call for a collection of Mr. Brown's poems, especially of his old war ballads, his home poems and hymns. There is a large and growing respect for the inspiring and conscientious work of his pen, and the public need the volume.

Mr. Brown was born at Willimantic, Conn., April 19, 1832. He was educated at the Connecticut Literary Institute at Suffield, at Yale College and Newton Theological Seminary. He entered upon the ministry with flattering prospects, but his voice failed, owing to a chronic bronchial affection, and in 1870 he became an assistant editor of the Youth's Companion, a position which he still holds.

Mr. Brown has written some excellent books for boys, which have enjoyed a wide popularity. "The Red Shanty Boys," "Nick Hardy,” “The Blount Family" and "Walter Neal's Example," are wellknown titles. He has contributed prose and verse to the leading papers, and done valuable historical work. But he will be longest known by his poems which have entered into many valuable collections from their own worth. "The Battle Above the Clouds" was one of the most popular ballads of the war time. His hymns, written chiefly for the musical Ruggles Street Church, Boston, are held in high esteem, and will one day find a large mission, in the world.

Mr. Brown is a kindly mannered man, with a heart full of sympathy for all that is good and helpful in life. He belongs to one of the old and most honored Puritan families, and maintains the sterling principles of his ancestry.

THE WILD STRAWBERRY.

H. B.

KISSES for your red cheek, rare-ripe of midsummer, Daisy's pulpy cousin down among the dew; Butterfly (no wonder), bird and brown-winged hummer,

Honeying through the clover, all make love to you.

Then how coy and cosy, plum at once and posy,

Up from meadow green you peep and blush at me! Blame your cunning sweet that woos and tempts so rosy,

If I stop and stoop, and cannot let you be.

Fair from faded childhood still the picture lingers

Of the school-road knoll it took so long to pass Where we, barefoot truants, stained on lips and fingers,

Loitered for you, red rogue berry in the grass.

Ah, twice fair come back the holiday that freed us To the fields with honest baskets for our spoil, Hunting lot and lane with bobolink to lead us— How the harvest sparkled, dotting all the soil!

Newly waked Pomona spread a feast unstinted
And we plucked and ate by the woodside and the

stream,

Till the long June day, itself grown crimson-tinted, Called us to the farmhouse for strawberries and

cream.

Kisses on your red cheek, matchless meadow-dainty,
Summer's earliest tidbit, wilding of the hill!
Still as sweet as ever tempts your ruby plenty,

Lips of little field-nymph redden with you still.

Might I claim your season! berry brightest, newest Of the fruitful year, so heartlike hue and form; Life begun and ripened while the skies are bluest, Prime and harvest under moon without a storm!

Musing thus I mark you, with the dew-drop mated, Hiding on the brook bank, sunning on the plain. Envy you? O never, fav'rite fair but fated;

I that praise must eat you, or my praise is vain.

THE OLD WIFE.

By the bed the old man, waiting, sat in vigil sad and tender,

Where his aged wife lay dying, and the twilight shadows brown

Slowly from the wall and window chased the sunset's golden splendor Going down.

"Is it night?" she whispered, waking, for her spirit seemed to hover,

Lost between the next world's sunrise and the

bedtime cares of this.

And the old man, weak and tearful, trembling bending over

Answered "Yes."

"Are the children in?" she asked him. Could he tell her? All the treasures