Den sech anoder fall ob rain! It come so awful hebby, De ribber riz immejitly, an' busted troo de lebbee;

De people all wuz drownded out-'cep' Noah an' de critters,

An' men he'd hired to wuk de boat-an' one to mix de bitters.

De Ark she kep' a-sailin' an' a-sailin' an' a-sailin';
De lion got his dander up, an' like to bruk de palin';
De sarpints hissed; de painters yelled; tel', whut wid
all de fussin',

You c'u'dn't hardly heah de mate a-bossin' 'roun' an' cussin'.

Now Ham, de only nigger whut wuz runnin' on de

packet,

Got lonesome in de barber-shop, an' c'u'dn't stan' de

racket;

An' so, fur to amuse he-se'f, he steamed some wood an'

bent it,

An' soon he had a banjo made—de fust dat wuz invented.

He wet de ledder, stretched it on; made bridge an' screws an' aprin;

An' fitted in a proper neck-'twuz berry long an' taprin'; He tuk some tin, an' twisted him a thimble fur to ring it: An' den de mighty question riz: how wuz he gwine to

string it?

De 'possum had as fine a tail as dis dat I's a-singin';
De ha'r's so long an' thick an' strong,-des fit fur banjo-

stringin';

Dat nigger shaved 'em off as short as washday-dinner graces:

An' sorted ob 'em by de size-f'om little E's to basses. He strung her, tuned her, struck a jig,-'twuz "Nebber min' de wedder,"

She soun' like forty-lebben bands a-playin' all togedder: Some went to pattin'; some to dancin': Noah called de

figgers;

An' Ham he sot an' knocked de tune, de happiest ob niggers!

Now, sence dat time-it's mighty strange-dere's not de slightes' showin'

Ob any ha'r at all upon de 'possum's tail a-growin'; An' curi's, too, dat nigger's ways: his people nebber los' 'em

Fur whar you finds de nigger-dar's de banjo an' de 'possum !

Edith M. Thomas

Edith Matilda Thomas was born at Chatham, Ohio, August 12, 1854. She was educated in the Normal Institute at Geneva, Ohio, and has been living in New York since 1888.

Miss Thomas is the author of some dozen books of verse, most of them lightly lyrical in mood, although many of her individual poems have a spiritually dramatic quality. The best of her work may be found in Lyrics and Sonnets (1887) and The Flower from the Ashes (1915).

"FROST TO-NIGHT”

Apple-green west and an orange bar;

And the crystal eye of a lone, one star
And, “Child, take the shears and cut what you will,
Frost to-night-so clear and dead-still."

Then I sally forth, half sad, half proud,
And I come to the velvet, imperial crowd,
The wine-red, the gold, the crimson, the pied,—
The dahlias that reign by the garden-side.

The dahlias I might not touch till to-night!
A gleam of shears in the fading light,
And I gathered them all,-the splendid throng,
And in one great sheaf I bore them along.

In my garden of Life with its all late flowers
I heed a Voice in the shrinking hours:
"Frost to-night-so clear and dead-still"
Half sad, half proud, my arms I fill.

George Edward Woodberry

George Edward Woodberry was born in Beverly, Mass., May 12, 1855, and studied at Harvard; his early efforts receiving the approval of James Russell Lowell. From 1891 to 1904 he was Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he exercised a keen influence on many of the younger writers.

His work is decidedly romantic and classical in style, leaning heavily toward the Tennysonian tradition. Although there is an undercurrent of spiritual beauty throughout his poetry, he frequently loses his power of exaltation in a rhetoric that is both stilted and sentimental. His chief collections of verse are The Flight and Other Poems (1900), Wild Eden (1914) and The Roamer and Other Poems (1920). He has also written several books of essays, criticism and biography.

IMMORTAL LOVE

Immortal Love, too high for my possessing,-
Yet, lower than thee, where shall I find repose?
Long in my youth I sang the morning rose,
By earthly things the heavenly pattern guessing!
Long fared I on, beauty and love caressing,
And finding in my heart a place for those
Eternal fugitives; the golden close

Of evening folds me, still their sweetness blessing.

Oh, happy we, the first-born heirs of nature,
For whom the Heavenly Sun delays his light!
He by the sweets of every mortal creature
Tempers eternal beauty to our sight;
And by the glow upon love's earthly feature
Maketh the path of our departure bright.

A SONG OF SUNRISE

(On the Morning of the Russian Revolution)

To those who drink the golden mist
Whereon the world's horizons rest,
Who teach the peoples to resist

The terrors of the human breast:-
By burning stake and prison-camp
They lead the march of man divine,
Above whose head the sacred lamp

Of liberty doth blaze and shine;
O'er blood and tears and nameless woe
They hail far off the dawning light;
Through faith in them the nations go,
Sun-smitten in the deepest night:-
Honor to them from East to West
Be on the shouting earth to-day!
Holy their memory! Sweet their rest!
Who fill the skies with freedom's ray!

H. C. Bunner

Henry Cuyler Bunner, one of our most delightful writers of light verse, was born at Oswego, New York, in 1855. At twenty-two he was appointed editor of Puck (then the most prominent of comic weeklies), a position which he held until his death. For more than ten years he wrote almost all the rhymed contributions to that journal-to say nothing of quantities of short stories (his Short Sixes, first published in 1890, are still well-known), prose paragraphs, topical parodies, edi