of the Astor family. Since their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Chanler have lived abroad for a considerable portion of the time in order to give Mrs. Chanler more opportunity for study, especially painting. She contracted an illness while abroad that came near proving fatal, but faithful care and nursing has about restored her to her wonted vigor and strength. She resides at Castle Hill, Virginia, where so many happy hours were passed in childhood, and which are so full of romance and tender associations. N. L. M.

UNTO THE LEAST OF THESE LITTLE ONES.

O CHILDREN'S eyes unchildlike! Children's eyes That make pure, hallowed age seem young indeedWan eyes that on drear horrors daily feed; Learned deep in all that leaves us most unwise! Poor wells, beneath whose troubled depths Truth lies,

Drowned, drowned, alas! So does my sad heart bleed

When I remember you; so does it plead

And strive within my breast-as one who cries
The torture of her first-born-that the day,
The long, bright day, seems thicker sown for me
With eyes of children than the heavens at night
With stars on stars. To watch you is to pray
That you may some day see as children see
When man, like God, hath said, "Let there be
light."

Dear Christ, Thou hadst Thy childhood ere Thy

cross:

These, bearing first their cross, no childhood know,
But, aged with toil, through countless horrors grow
To age more horrible. Rough locks atoss
Above drink-reddened eyes, like Southern moss
That drops its tangles to the marsh below;
No standard dreamed or real by which to show
The piteous completeness of their loss;
No rest, no hope, no Christ; the cross alone
Borne on their backs by day, their bed by night,
Their ghastly plaything when they pause to weep,
Their threat of torture do they dare to moan:
A darkness ever dark across their light,
A weight that makes a waking of their sleep.

Father, who countest such poor birds as fall,
Count Thou these children fallen from their place;
Lift and console them of Thy pity's grace,
And teach them that to suffer is not all;
Hedge them about with love as with a wall,
Give them in dreams the knowledge of Thy face,
And wipe away such stains as sin doth trace,

145

Ah me! thy child! How can I love thy child,
Which hath begun its life by taking thine?
And yet it was thine own, and thine is mine;
Therefore it is mine too. Oh God! the wild,
Mad, helpless yearning to lay down this mild,

Pale, winter flower among the flowers that shine
Like stars above thee, while Love, grown divine,
Omnipotent, unquestioned, undefiled,
Bids Death exchange, and let thee live again!

Nay I want not thy child; I thirst for thee,
As thirst the summer meadows for the rain,
As longs the mainland for the tarrying sea,
As stricken souls do yearn for bodily pain.
Oh, God in heaven! must such anguish be?

Alas! alas! God will not let thee hear,
To grieve in heaven for my bitterness;
Nor would I have thee listen, to confess
God loves thee more than I. Ah, have no fear;
My sorrow cannot touch thee. I am here,
And thou art where no love can harm, or bless,
Or reach, or move thee. Let me keep one tress,
To rest where thy head rested one fair year.
It is not much to ask of thee, O sweet,

Who hast for love of me given thy bright life.
Such kisses as had made thy pure heart beat

But yesterday, still leave thee stone, my wife. Farewell, dear brow, dear mouth, dear hands, dear feet!

Thine is the freedom; mine, the fire, the knife.

Yet was it wonderful, when all is said,

Heaven should desire thee? Nay; for thou wert far Above most women as God's handmaids are; Thy soul as flowers that bloom when day is fled; Thy purity as crown upon thy head;

In all things lovely. There was naught to mar The jewel of thy nature, while a star Seemed thy sweet, steadfast love. Now, being dead, Thou, star-like, love-like, seekest heaven, while I Seem cast from heaven, like Satan, into hell. O darling, ask thy God to let me die

Thou who canst plead so nobly and so well. It shall be borne, so rest come by-and-by.

Thou canst not answer? Then, once more, farewell!

Sweet eyes, farewell; cold bosom, fare thee well; Farewell all joy, all love, all hope, all peace. Welcome, fierce pain, till Death do bid ye cease, Farewell, content. My bride, my wife, farewell. The mother of my child! Oh hell in hell,

For which High God Himself hath no surcease, No straws of comfort such as gleaners lease From fields already harvested! This knell

Rings ever in my ears: "She gave her life
In giving thee thy child." What care had I,
So that my rose bloomed on, if that Death's knife
Pruned each bud as it blossomed? Is to die
To love no more, O exquisite, pale wife,
Or only to be deaf unto Love's cry?

ABANDONMENT.

SOMETIMES when walls seem enemies, and sleep Given to others like a cruel jest

Sent for my mocking, I, being mad for rest, Creep out all lonely past the huddled sheep,Stirring with drowsy tang of bells that keep Soft iterance through the whispery night, where

nest

And nestling sway, by winnowing wind caressed.

There fling myself along the grass to weep,
Sobs gathering, hands gripped hard into the earth,—
The blessed earth that takes us back at last!-
And think, "Ah, could this knowledge now
befall

Some woman who for long hath thought me worth
Only her hatred, she would hold me fast
And strive to comfort me, forgetting all."

SURRENDER.

TAKE all of me,-I am thine own, heart, soul—
Brain, body-all; all that I am or dream
Is thine forever; yea, though space should teem
With thy conditions, I'd fulfill the whole,

Were to fulfill them to be loved of thee.
Oh, love me!—were to love me but a way
To kill me-love me; so to die would be
To live forever. Let me hear thee say

Once only, "Dear, I love thee"-then all life Would be one sweet remembrance,—thou its king: Nay, thou art that already, and the strife Of twenty worlds could not uncrown thee. Bring, O Time! my monarch to possess his throne, Which is my heart and for himself alone.

LOVE'S SEASONS.

THE wall-flowers to the frolic wind
Do dance their golden aigulets,
And elf-maids steal the hawthorn beads
To wear for fairy amulets.
The spring is here, the spring is here-
The love-time of the year, my dear!

All heavy hang the apple boughs,

Weighed down by balls of yellow gold; The poppy cups, so fiery bright,

Meseems would burn the hearts they hold. The summer's here, the summer's hereThe kiss-time of the year, my dear!

The birds are winging for the south,

The elf-maids haste them to their bowers, And dandelion balls do float

Like silver ghosts of golden flowers. The autumn's here, the autumn's here-The wife-time of the year, my dear!

Now are the heavens not more gray
Than are the eyes of her I love;
More dainty-white than her sweet breast
The snow lies not the earth above.
The winter's here, the winter's here;
But love-time lasts the year, my dear!

LOVE.

Love cannot utter blasphemy, for Love
Is his own god and king of his own heaven.
-Herod and Mariamne.

LOVE.

t means to put myself beyond myself,
To think of him I love in that self's stead,
To be sleep's enemy because of him,
Because of him to be the friend of pain,

To have no thought, no wish, no dream, no memory,
That is not servant to him; to forget

All earlier loves in his,—all hates, all wrongs;
Being meek unto him, though proud unto all others;
Gentle to him, though to all others harsh;
To him submissive, though unto high heaven
Something rebellious. Last, to keep my patience
And bear his doubts, who have his children borne.
-Ibid.

DOUBT.

Doubt is the shaft wherewith Love wounds himself. -Ibid.

A

AMANDA ELIZABETH DENNIS.

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MANDA ELIZABETH DENNIS is a native of Maryland, and was born in that part of Worcester now included in Wicomico county, near the village of Powellville, Md., but she now resides at Berlin, Md. Her father possessed wide information and was a man of influence in his county; her mother was a woman of gentle breeding and noble character. Her paternal grandfather came to this country from England when a boy, and her maternal great-grandmother was a Custis of Virginia, one of the historical family of that

name.

As a

Miss Dennis was educated in Baltimore city, but all of her life, except her school days, has been spent in the place of her birth-a section of lonely roads and silent forests which have left their im. press upon her active and creative fancy. child she was shy and reticent. Her first published poem appeared in the Baltimore Weekly Sun in 186-, just when she stood at that period of life where girlhood and womanhood meet; and in the earliest, as in all her writings, a vein of sadness is noticeable, tinging her sunniest moods and merriest fancies. This disposition to "sing of the shadow rather than the sun," her friends attribute to her environments, the haunting of lonely and weird places and the brooding over the mysteries of life, not to her temperament, for she has a nimbleness of wit and a generous heart which make her a delightful companion and a lovable friend. Always fond of little children, and thoughtful and tender of the aged, much of her life has been devoted to them. She was a successful and beloved teacher, until failing health compelled her to retire from the profession. In the waning autumn of 1890 a great sorrow came into her life-the death of her mother. As the mother's years and infirmities increased, the daughter's devotion grew till her life seemed absorbed in that of her mother, and the loss was

a severe one.

A few years ago, Miss Dennis gathered her poems and published them in book form under the title of "Asphodels and Pansies." Unheralded by advertisement and unaided by special effort, her book met with favor. C. F. H.