I know I am cheating myself with wild dreams; They'll crumble to dust 'neath my pitiful gaze; But my heart is glad for the tiniest gleams

It can hoard away for the sorrowful days. Then sing on, oh! winds, ye are stormy and cold! And days, ye are wet with the damp of the sea! But I can array ye in vestments of gold,

And crown ye with gems that are priceless to me.

ST. ELVO.

SUMMER stands where the sweet Year slopes
Toward the plains of the Sunset Land;
I gather the gleams of its flickering hopes,
And hold them back with a wistful hand.
Beautiful hopes, must ye drift away?

Beautiful dream-lights, must ye fade?
Over the hills of the bliss-crowned day
Lingering footsteps gather the shade,
Lingering voices, tender and low,

Render the sweet Year doubly fair;
Why should the sweetness of beauty grow
Ten-fold sweeter beneath despair?
Across the Summer's vanished smiles
I lean my wistful heart to-night,
And out of all its scented aisles

I hold one doubly sweet and bright,
I hold one doubly dear and fair.
Come life or death, I hold it aye,
My treasure-trove, my jewel rare,

My crown of faith, my wreath of bay;
Come life or death, it matters not,

God's love is surer than our tears; To wait is but our common lot,

However long the wistful years. And so I hold it doubly dear,

This sweet, sad Summer of delight; The years may drift to shadows drear, They cannot blur its treasured light!

THE FAIR SWEET ISLE.

SOFTLY the wind of the far-away sea Tapped at my window last night, and sighed,— "Far away there's a fair, sweet isle

Where the sky bends low and clear and wide; And the sun-bright days are full of peace;

And the restful nights are long and calm; And softly the breath of its beautiful bloom Fills all the air with a pulsing balm.

"And the flowers thou lovest are blooming there, The fairest of all sweet Flora's band,

And the velvet touch of their fragrant lips
Is like the touch of a loved one's hand.
And the wistful winds thou lovest so well
Have found a home in the fair, sweet isle;
And the sun's bright glow on the rippling waves
Is soft as the light of love's own smile.
"Then come with me, thou'rt weary and worn;
Thy feet are burnt by the arid plain;
And the wistful years have brought to thee,
Filled to the brim, life's chalice of pain.
But the island fields are green and cool,
And the island founts are clear and sweet;
Come, cool thy lips at the sparkling fount,
And rest on the grass thy tired feet!"

I turned in my sleep, and woke with a sigh
Answering the sigh of the soft, sweet wind;

I looked from the window, but the voice was gone,
And only the moonlight trailed behind.
But I lay awake with the echoing sigh
Whispering still of the fair, sweet isle
Nestling amid the opaline waves,

The pictured dream of an Angel's smile!

And I thought, ah me! could I only find

This beautiful isle of peace and calm! Could rest in its pastures green and cool, And breathe the breath of its fragrant balm! For I am tired, as the sweet wind said;

And the softest night and the brightest day Are not so fair as the dear wind's dream Of the fair, sweet island far away!

A SUMMER STORM.

THE Solemn pines, in their stately way,
Gather the flush of the dying day,
And hold it a moment, still and warm,
Despite the wrath of the mutt'ring storm,
Whose flying couriers, through the air,
Leap from the gloom of their unseen lair
To herald the coming fray.

And over the West, still warm and bright
With the last fond kiss of the Sun's good-night,
Rises a column, majestic and grand
The wild-wrought dream of an unseen hand,
Riven and burnished, with here and there
The gleaming trail of the lightning's glare
Turning the gloom to lurid day.
Along the West, in shadowy lines,
I catch a glimpse of the solemn pines
Swaying despondently to and fro,
Ablaze in the lightning's vivid glow,

Answering the Storm-King's battle-song
With shivering threnodes, wild and long,

Like haunting voices from the sea.

Tempest and darkness!-furious and high
The bannered winds go clamoring by!
The lightnings flash, the thunder-bursts roar!
The wild rain beats at the panelled door!
And I sit here, thinking how still and bright
The morn will wake from the stormy night,
Radiant, gladsome, and free!

And it minds me so of the Dream called Life,
Tempest-tossed often, and full of strife;
Wounded with loss, and hurt with dismay;
Crowded with toil, and worn with delay;
Body and soul would fain be at rest,
Glad to relinquish Life's sorrowful quest
For Lethe, and dreamless sleep.

But after the night and tempest are past,
Life will be joyous and sweet at the last;
Sunshine and flowers will crowd with perfume
The storm-drenched pathways of sorrow and gloom;
Over the hills shines the brightness of day,
Tempest and darkness have all passed away!
Why should we sorrow and weep?

AMID THE CORN. ·

I STOOD, last eve, 'mid the whispering corn,
While the soft wind-voices rose and fell;
And the starlight hush of the night new-born
Enwrapped my heart with its witching spell.
And the toilsome day, and its gairish light,
Like a troubled thought went softly by,
And left me alone with the tender night,
The whispering corn and the wind's soft sigh.

And I knelt in the dusk of the tasseled grain,
With never a thought of passing time;

With only the sound of an old refrain
Filling my heart with its broken rhyme;
With only a dream that was born of a dream

And died with the death of the fair, sweet thing, And left but the glint of a golden gleam

Like the vanishing flash of an angel's wing.

And the whispering corn-tops softly swayed
Back and forth in voluptuous ease;
And a hundred viewless fingers played
Sweet madrigals upon the breeze.

And I knelt me there, in the tasseled grain,
With never a thought of passing time;

With only the sound of an old refrain Filling my heart with its broken rhyme.

MAUDE ANDREWS OHL.

151

HE brilliant young woman who signs her writ

29, 1862, at the home of her great-grandfather, Joshua Morgan, in Taliaferro county, Georgia, but she was so small when she left there that she has no associations with it, and her most loving and sacred memories cluster about the old home in Washington, Ga., where she spent her early days. There, in the grand old home of her grandfather, Judge Andrews, she passed her childhood. It was a lordly place, sweet with old orchards and terraced gardens, surrounded by a forest of giant trees. In those enchanted shades the future writer dreamed many of the beautiful thoughts that have since súng themselves into the minds and hearts of a loving public. Mrs. Ohl won her earliest reputation in a series of letters from New York to the Atlanta Constitution, they were marked by a wonderful degree of freshness and independence. She is one of the foremost newspaper women in the South, and a favorite poet. She comes of a family noted for its intellectual strength. Her grandfather, Judge Andrews, was one of the most distinguished jurists the state ever produced; Miss Fanny Andrews, her cousin, is a popular novelist, and Miss Eliza A. Bowen, the eminent astronomer, is also her cousin.

Maude Andrews has many gifts. As a critic she is outspoken and appreciative. She discusses art and the drama with ability, and her society sketches are equally characterized by novelty and vigorous treatment. She writes on all social matters, reforms, public charities, entertainments, with uniform excellence. She has a broad and liberal mind, a tender heart open to the woes and weaknesses of her sex, and a soul breathing aspiration.

Mrs. Ohl and her husband, the talented "J.K.O.," are both members of the Atlanta Constitution staff, and contribute largely to the force and popularity of that paper. Unlike many literary women, she is a thorough and skilled housekeeper, and many distinguished people are entertained in her artistic little home. Personally she is very attractive, young, with a full, graceful figure, her face richly tinted, and lighted by eyes that speak from the soul. One lovely little girl, now in her second year, brightens their home life. Mrs. Ohl is a genius made constant to her gifts by a splendid, reverential earnestness. M. R. C.

WHY IS IT?

We spent the Summer by the sea, Together gaily swam and flirted;

Her lissome limbs, from toe to knee,
Were freely left to kick unskirted.
But, if her buttoned body slipped,

A glimpse of snow-white shoulders showing,
She'd quickly pin the place that ripped,
While blushes on her face were glowing.

To-night I take her to the ball.

She cometh down-a dream elysian; As bare as Eve's before the fall

Her shoulders are, a lovely vision. Enchained, I gaze from head to foot. Beneath her soft skirts' silky laces There peeps a dainty little boot;

She draws it back-how red her face is.

THE WIND AND THE LILY.

THE Lily lifted her milk-white bloom,
And freighted the air with a soft perfume,
And a warm wind came from the sultry vale,
And he kissed her petals so pure and pale.

With a fearless heart she reared her head,

For she thought there was naught from the wind to dread

And she wrapped her round in her spotless pride, While she shed her fragrance on every side.

But the wind grew warmer and stronger still, And he kissed her cup with an ardent will, And her petals drooped in the burning air, While her beauty waned with a mute despair.

Then the wind passed by with a careless smile,
And he sought new buds in a little while,
And he gave no grace to the perfect flower
But he took from her beauty and pride and power.

I pondered the lesson in thoughtful fashion; The Lily was virtue; the Wind was passion.

TWO SELVES.

UNTO myself I have grown strangely great And wise and good.

Crowned with rare beauty, lo, I sit in state
Of womanhood,

The lofty queen; so wondrous fair am I
That angels come,

To peep out from their windows in the sky
And then grow dumb

With envy of my perfect loveliness;
While all the world

Lives but to do me homage and to bless
My days. Unfurled

Life's greatest honors wave, my eyes to greet.
How strange it seems,

All these high praises-ah, so strange and sweet
As if in dreams

I walked; yet unto one, these dreams I know
All seem as true

As truth itself, because you love me so.
Dear heart, to you

I am all that I am not, and would be.
Thy love hath made

Me stand before my true self tremblingly,
Shy and afraid.

I look up to my new self with this trust:
That I may climb

On thy love's ladder from my human dust,
And win in time

The stars you now see on my lowly brow.
Thy love alone

Hath power to lift me to that self which now
You deem my own.

A PORTRAIT.

SHE thinks so much of worldly show
That, should an angel call her to
Arise unto the skies,

A long white robe she'd quickly don,
And buy a harp to play upon;
Then pay a call to every friend,
And tell them all to watch her wend
Her way to Paradise.

THE LEGEND.

A LOVELY Woman in an eastern land
Once swayed a kingdom with her slender hand;
Her burdens heavy grew and weighed her down,-
Upon her brow there pressed a jeweled crown.

Too cumbrous for its tender resting-place, The golden weight adorned a weary face. She cried, "I have grown tired of my power; It seemeth more unbearable each hour.

"Let some one come that I may crown him King; Within his hand he must a guerdon bring