The giant ledges, red and seamed, The clear, blue sky, tree-fretted; The mottled light that round us streamed, The bees that buzzed, the guats that dreamed, The flitting, gauzy things of June; The plain, far-off, like misty ocean, Or, cloud-land bound, a fair lagoon,They sang within us like a tune, They swayed us like a dream of motion. The hours went loitering to the West, Slowly crept on the listening night, The sinking moon shone pale and slender; We hailed the cotton-woods, in sight, The home-roof gleaming near and tender, Guiding our quickened steps aright. Soon darkened all the mighty hills, The gods were sitting there in shadow; Lulled were the noisy woodland rills, Silent the silvery woodland trills,-'Twas starlight over Colorado! SHADOW EVIDENCE. Swift o'er the sunny grass, I saw a shadow pass With subtle charm; So quick, so full of life, With thrilling joy so rife, I started, lest unknown, My step-ere it was flown,Had done it harm. Why look up to the blue? In silent flight. Dear little bird, and fleet, More sure am I of thee- Than of some things felt and known, All my life long. THE TWO MYSTERIES. "In the middle of the room, in its white coffin, lay the dend child, a nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful little girl on his lap. She looked wonderingly at the spectacle of death, and then inquiringly into the old man's face. You don't know what it is, do you, my dear?' said he, and added, ‘We don't either." We know not what it is, dear, Though we may call and call; We know not what it means, dear, We know not to what other sphere But this we know: our loved and dead, Not one of us could say. Life is a mystery as deep As ever death can be; Yet oh! how dear it is to ns,- Then might they say-these vanished ouesAnd blessed is the thought! "So death is sweet to us, beloved, Though we may show you naught; The mystery of breath." MARY MAPES DODGE.-KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.-ZADEL BARNES GUSTAFSON. 905 The child who enters life comes not With knowledge or intent, So those who enter death must go As little children sent. Nothing is known. But I believe That God is overhead; And as life is to the living, So death is to the dead. NOW THE NOISY WINDS ARE STILL. Pit, pat, patter, clatter, Sudden sun, and clatter, patter!- Kate Putnam Osgood. AMERICAN. Born at Fryeburg, Me., in 1840, Miss Osgood has contributed to the magazines a number of poems worthy of being collected into a volume. Her little ballad of "Driving Home the Cows" has a homely pathos that goes straight to its mark. DRIVING HOME THE COWS. Out of the clover and blue-eyed grass He turned them into the river-lane; One after another he let them pass, Then fastened the meadow bars again. Under the willows, and over the hill, He patiently followed their sober pace; The merry whistle for once was still, And something shadowed the sunny face. Only a boy! and his father had said He never could let his youngest go: Two already were lying dead Under the feet of the trampling foe. But after the evening work was done, And the frogs were loud in the meadow-swamp, Over his shoulder he slung his gun And stealthily followed the foot-path damp. Across the clover, and through the wheat, Thrice since then had the lanes been white, And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom; And now, when the cows came back at night, The feeble father drove them home. For news had come to the lonely farm That three were lying where two had lain; And the old man's tremulous, palsied arm Could never lean on a son's again. The summer day grew cool and late. He went for the cows when the work was done; But down the lane, as he opened the gate, He saw them coming one by one: Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess, Shaking their horns in the evening wind; Cropping the buttercups out of the grassBut who was it following close behind? Loosely swung in the idle air The empty sleeve of army blue; And worn and pale, from the crisping hair, Looked out a face that the father knew. For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn, The great tears sprang to their meeting eyes: Zadel Barnes Gustafson. AMERICAN. The author of "Meg: a Pastoral, and other Poems" (Boston: Lee & Shephard, 1879), is one of the youngest of our American poets (born March 9th, 1841). The reader of her poems is impressed, in some of them by |