FIFTH VERSE.

THE TREE OF STATE.

THE MAPLE.

PROUD emblem tree of the Empire State!
Thy virtues on this festal day
I cheerfully would commemorate,
And own allegiance to thy sway.
Deep-rooted in thy native soil,

The field of all my earlier toil,
The sepulcher which holds in trust

For future time, my kindred dust; The play-ground of my childhood years, The cradle of my dreams, loves, fears; The very dust is dear which creeps

About thy roots and vigil keeps. And every fibre of thy growth,

Endeared to me since early youth, Grows dearer still, while dreaming where Magnolia bloom fills all the air.

FIRST VERSE.

I see thee now before the storm king bending,
As I have seen thee oft, and fled from under,
When lightning flashes, scarce begun, scarce end-
ing.

Their works have told in tones of fiercest thunder.
And thou wast beautiful and great,
Oh, emblem tree of the Empire State!

SECOND VERSE.

I see thee now, well-rounded, calm, and blending
Shades and touches by deft Nature's brush.
And o'er the whole, the latest sunset lending

That strange, soft something, 'twixt a glow and flush,

Which holds entranced, e'en while I wait,
Oh, emblem tree of the Empire State!

THIRD VERSE.

Now lo! behold! Two happy lovers straying
Grow conscious that the moonbeams softly steal-
ing

Athwart their path, are stealthily betraying
Their soul-lit faces; mirrored love revealing.

So, 'neath thy shade, they trembling wait,
To shield Love's flush, oh, Tree of State!

FOURTH VERSE.

E'en merry urchins 'neath thy branches swinging, Refresh themselves at thy o'erflowing fountain, And praises loud in childish glee are ringing,

As one by one, thy top-most branches mounting, Each vies with each, oh, Tree of State! While echoing hills reiterate.

I see them now, thy garnered leaves, adorning
The palace, hall and hovel, yea! the bier.
They turn the night of poverty to morning,
And bring to gilded homes a touch of cheer;
While even Death they decorate,—
Thy leaves-oh, cherished Tree of State!

SIXTH VERSE.

But words are sounding voids, when hands are waiting

To set the royal seal of praise to-day,
And show a love enduring, unabating,
By planting thy dear rootlets by the way.
Long live the Maple, grand and great!
Proud emblem tree of the Empire State!

UNCAGED.

THE Zone which binds the higher life,
Expands beneath the soothing balm
Of early morning's restful calm,
When night has stilled the jar of strife.
Like birds uncaged we swing aloft.

Our narrow selves outgrown, we sing
In sympathy with Nature's ring,
In numbers round or trillings soft.

Advances now with rapid strides

Broad day, and we, earth-bound shrink back, That duty's hour may know no lack, To find our fitness amplified.

Our feet run with a lighter trip,

Our hands now eager grasp their toil,
While far more freely flows the oil
Of human love from heart and lip.

Then rise, oh, burdened soul, and let
Your higher being trill a song,
Which through your grovelings shall prolong
Its echoes, till the day has set.

LINCOLN.

LINCOLN, ordained to meet a country's want,
From lowly walks grew lowlier as he rose
Triumphant o'er occasions and o'er foes.
With dignity oft spiced with pleasant taunt
Dispensed he justice unimpaired by daunt.
Where'er is told the tale of slavery's woes,
In proud display the name of Lincoln goes,
But autographed with ne'er a trace of vaunt.

America's proud heirloom ne'er shall be Mildewed in shelved and worthless history. Both victims and the masters of the crime Alike revere the name that set them free. All write him proudest hero of his time, Illustrious martyr of a cause sublime.

SEA MOSSES.

I'VE gathered sea mosses, all wet with the sea,
And this is the way they came floating to me.
The waves held a carnival. Each wore a crest
Of sky-tinted mosses, and lovingly pressed
Each other, and kissed, as they laughingly played.
And some of the wavelets made love, and they
strayed

'Mong the rocks on the shore,

And they ruthlessly tore

From the coquettish wavelets, so thoughtless and gay,

This bunch of sea mosses, all dripping with spray, And I just came up slyly and stole them away.

INTO THE LIKENESS.

THE Sunflower, clinging to its stalk, Can neither fly, nor run, nor walk, But ever gazes towards the sun, From early morn till day is done.

And really it is quite amazing

How like the sun it grows, in gazing.
If, while earth-bound, we may not quite
Reach up unto the grandest height,
By keeping it each day in view
We may adorn us with its hue.

TRUE CHARITY.

LET not e'en your left hand know the gift you

bestow

With your right, to the neighbor just over the way. Let your life be the trumpet before you to go, And repeat by its sweetness the prayers that you

say.

ST. AUGUSTINE.

FAIR St. Augustine, nature's winter queen,
Languidly is lying

In her summer dress of rarest loveliness,
Listening to the sighing,

And the steady moaning, and the weary groaning
Of the sea.

Sails are idly flapping, boatmen soundly nappingDreaming are we.

-A Shadow Picture.

CLEMENT SCOTT.

HERE are in the variety and multiplicity of

THER

our labors some tasks that we approach with peculiar, and, indeed, cordial pleasure; and to discourse of the qualities of a man the gracefulness and purity of whose writings we have learned to admire and to hold in high esteem, may be allowed to rank with the first of these. Mr. Clement Scott has many admirers. As a poet his touching sentiments and dainty conceits appeal to a large circle; as a dramatist he finds numerous followers; whilst as a philanthropist, and one, moreover, whose words and deeds are full of the milk of human kindness, he has accomplished much good and useful work. To this delightful trinity of characters Mr. Scott adds the role of critic; and it is as critic that he is best known and most respected. When the leaves on the trees were changing their color in 1888, and the berries on the hedges were beginning to ripen, Mr. Scott, who commenced his career on the Sunday Times, was celebrating, on the staff of the Daily Telegraph, his silver wedding with dramatic criticism. Through long years he has worked honorably at a post in which he has attained a position that may be regarded as unique. The dramatic student does not live who cannot follow with pleasure and delight this critic's detailed reviews of new productions and interesting revivals. There is a refinement, an artistic finish, a surpassing thoroughness about these works that no other contemporary critic, if we except, perhaps, Mr. William Archer, has yet revealed. When, moreover, we remember that these criticisms are written when the day's work is ordinarily over, and that there can be no parleying with Time or the relentless printer, we may well wonder that even this facile pen never falters, and that every idea is as perfectly connected as it is set down lucidly and clearly.

The son of a benevolent clergyman, Mr. Scott has inherited in an unusual degree his father's noble views and lofty sentiments. He was born nine and forty years ago at Christ Church Parsonage, Hoxton, and received his education at Marlborough College, Wiltshire. Here it was, a diligent, lively lad at school, that he wrote his first poem, which appeared under the title of "The Wreck of the Royal Charter" in the poets' corner of the Marlborough Times. On quitting college in the year 1860, he was appointed, by Lord Herbert of Lea, to a clerkship in the War Office. To many a man of literary aims and high ambitions, the duties of the desk would have proved insufferably irksome. Mr. Scott, however, did not seem to find them so, for the appointment he had secured he held with

out intermission till the spring of 1879, when he retired on a pension. Happily for the development of those abilities which he displayed at an early age, Mr. Scott found ample leisure in these years spent at the War Office to pursue his studies in literature and to follow that profession for which he was so eminently qualified. His first Vers de Société having been printed in Temple Bar, by Edmund Yates, we find him subsequently a constant contributor to Fun in such excellent company as that of Harry Leigh, Jeff Prowse, and Savile Clarke. As dramatic critic he was employed until the year 1873,-when his connection with the Daily Telegraph commenced — successively on the Sunday Times, the Weekly Dispatch, and the Observer. In addition to his contributions to Fun, he also wrote poetry for Punch after Mr. Burnand assumed the editorship. In his satiric journal appeared many of those poems afterwards issued in volume form, under the titles, "Lays of a Londoner," "Poems for Recitation," and lastly a volume of collected poems, "Lays and Lyrics," in the charming handy volume series published by Routledge and Sons. In connection with the second-named, it may be interesting to mention that his first work of this nature, "The Cry of the Clerk," was quoted in extenso in the Times. If we follow further his career, we shall find that it has been Mr. Scott's happy custom to publish in volume form the pink of his contributed articles, whether in prose or poetry. In this manner his holiday papers, Round About the Islands" and "Poppy Land Papers," have been collected and issued as separate publications. Mr. Scott is still associated with the editorial staff of the Daily Telegraph, whose columns, in addition to those of the Illustrated London News, to which he is a frequent contributor, his graceful and smooth-flowing contributions help materially to adorn. F. A. H. E.

THREE KISSES.

AN angel, with three lilies in her hand,
Came winging to the earth from Paradise;
They changed to kisses ere she reached love's land,
And fell upon the brow, the lips, the eyes.

First was the kiss of purity and peace-
Lonely they sat together by the fire-
To him from sorrow came a dear release,
To her the shadow of a dim desire.
Two aimless souls had ceased their wandering,
Two fettered spirits struggled to be free;
To sweet Love's garden came the blossoming,
The tender leaf unfolded on Love's tree,
The Kiss of Sanctity!

Next was the kiss of soul bound unto soul-
They stood at night beneath a ruined tower—
Dimly they heard the waves' eternal roll,

Life was embodied in a single hour!
The one strong moment in a love divine,
The Present shadowing Futurity;
No fate, no time, no terror could combine
To rob that silence of its ecstacy—
The Kiss of Unity!

Last came the kiss of dear love perfected,
Sad in the chamber of the thing called Death!
Two tapers at the feet, two at the head,
The murmured prayer, the low, half-sobbing
breath,

But brighter yet in distance far away,

A gathered army of the souls that live; The golden dawn of a transcendent day, When angels of the lilies come to give The Kiss-Eternity!

THE MIDNIGHT CHARGE.

PASS the word to the boys to-night! lying about 'midst dying and dead

Whisper it low; make ready to fight! stand like men at your horse's head!

Look to your stirrups and swords, my lads, and into your saddles your pistols thrust; Then, setting your teeth as your fathers did, you'll make the enemy bite the dust!

What did they call us, boys, at home?-"Featherbed soldiers!"-faith, it's true! "Kept to be seen in her Majesty's parks, and mightily smart at a grand review!" Feather-bed soldiers? Curse their chaff! Where in the world, I should like to know, When a war broke out and the country called, was an English soldier sorry to go? Brothers in arms, and brothers in heart! cavalry! infantry! there and then;

No matter what careless lives they lived, they were ready to die like Englishmen!

So pass the word in the sultry night,

Stand to your saddles! make ready to fight!

We are sick to death of the scorching sun, and the desert stretching for miles away;

We are all of us longing to get at the foe, and sweep the sand with our swords to-day! Our horses look with piteous eyes - they have little to eat, and nothing to do;

And the land around is horribly white, and the sky above is terribly blue.