Out breaks at once the golden melody,

"With passionate expression!" Ah, from whence Comes the enchantment of this potent spell,

This charm that takes us captive, soul and sense? The sacred power of music, who shall tell, Who find the secret of its mastery?

Lo, in the keen vibration of the air,

Pierced by the sweetness of the violin, Shaken by thrilling chords and searching notes That flood the ivory keys, the flowers begin To tremble; 'tis as if some spirit floats

And breathes upon their beauty unaware.

The stately poppies, proud in stillness, stand
In silken splendour of superb attire:
Stricken with arrows of melodious sound,

Their loosened petals fall like flakes of fire;
With waves of music overwhelmed and drowned,
Solemnly drop their flames on either hand.

So the rich moment dies, and what is left?
Only a memory sweet, to shut between
Some poem's silent leaves, to find again,

Perhaps when winter blasts are howling keen,
And summer's loveliness is spoiled and slain,
And all the world of light and bloom bereft.

But winter cannot rob the music so!

Nor time nor fate its subtle power destroy To bring again the summer's dear caress,

To wake the heart to youth's unreasoning joy,-Sound, colour, perfume, love, to warm and bless, And airs of balm from Paradise that blow.

EDITH MATILDA THOMAS.

[Born at Chatham, Ohio, 12th August 1854. Author of A New Year's Masque, and other Poems (Boston, 1885); The Round Year (1886); and Lyrics and Sonnets (1887). The poems given are quoted with the kind permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]

THE QUIET PILGRIM.

"What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and Himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul."-ISAIAH XXXVIII. 15.

WHEN on my soul in nakedness

His swift avertless hand did press,
Then I stood still, nor cried aloud,
Nor murmured low in ashes bowed;
And, since my woe is utterless,
To supreme quiet I am vowed;
Afar from me be moan and tears,—
I shall go softly all my years.

Whenso my quick light-sandalled feet
Bring me where Joys and Pleasures meet,
I mingle with their throng at will;
They know me not an alien still,
Since neither words nor ways unsweet
Of stored bitterness I spill;

Youth shuns me not, nor gladness fears,

I shall go softly all my years.

Whenso I come where Griefs convene,

And in my ear their cry is keen,
They know me not, as on I glide,
That with Arch Sorrow I abide.

They haggard are, and drooped of mien,
And round their brows have cypress tied;
Such shows I leave to light Grief's peers,-
I shall go softly all my years.

Yea, softly! heart of hearts unknown.
Silence hath speech that passeth moan,

More piercing-keen than breathed cries
To such as heed, made sorrow-wise.
But save this voice without a tone,
That runs before me to the skies,
And rings above thy ringing spheres,
Lord, I go softly all my years.

EXILES.

THEY both are exiles; he who sailed
Great circles of the day and night,
Until the vapoury bank unveiled

A land of palm trees fair to sight.
They both are exiles; she who still

Seems to herself to watch, ashore, The wind too fain his canvas fill, The sunset burning close before.

He has no sight of Saxon face,

He hears a language harsh and strange; She has not left her native place,

Yet all has undergone a change.

They both are exiles; nor have they

The same stars shining in their skies;

His nightfall is her dawn of day,

His day springs westward from her eyes.

Each says apart, There is no land

So far, so vastly desolate,

But had we sought it hand in hand,

We both had blessed the driving fate.

FROST.

How small a tooth hath mined the season's heart!

How cold a touch hath set the wood on fire,

Until it blazes like a costly pyre

Built for some Ganges emperor old and swart,

Soul-sped on clouds of incense! Whose the art
That webs the streams each morn with silver wire,
Delicate as the tension of a lyre?

Whose falchion pries the chestnut burr apart?
It is the Frost, a rude and Gothic sprite,
Who doth unbuild the summer's palaced wealth,
And puts her dear loves all to sword or flight;
Yet in the hushed, unmindful winter night
The spoiler builds again, with jealous stealth,
And sets a mimic garden cold and bright.

MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND.

[Born in Lyons, N. Y., about 1836. Author of The Brother Clerks, a Novel (1858, Derby and Jackson, N.Y.); Xariffa's Poems (1881, J. B. Lippincott & Co.); and Down the Bayou (1882, Ticknor & Co., now Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston). The poems given are with the kind permission of these firmsthe shorter poem being from the earlier volume. Mrs Townsend has now another volume of verse ready for the press.]

DOWN THE BAYOU.

WE drifted down the long lagoon,
My Love, my Summer Love and I,
Far out of sight of all the town,
The old Cathedral sinking down,
With spire and cross, from view below
The borders of St John's bayou,
As toward the ancient Spanish Fort,
With steady prow and helm a port,
We drifted down, my Love and I,
Beneath an azure April sky,
My Love and I, my Love and I,
Just at the hour of noon.

We drifted down, and drifted down,
My Love, my Summer Love and I,
Beyond the Creole part of town,
Its red-tiled roofs, its stucco walls,
Its belfries with their sweet bell-calls,

The Bishop's Palace, which enshrines
Such memories of the Ursulines;
Past balconies where maidens dreamed
Behind the shelter of cool vines;

Past open doors where parrots screamed;
Past courts where mingled shade and glare
Fell through pomegranate boughs, to where
The turbaned negress, drowsy grown,
Sat nodding in her ample chair:
Beyond the joyance and the stress,
Beyond the greater and the less,
Beyond the tiresome noonday town,
The parish prison's cupolas,

The bridges, with their creaking draws,
And many a convent's frown,—

We drifted on, my Love and I,
Beneath the semi-tropic sky,

While from the clock-towers in the town

Spake the meridian bells that said,-

"Twas morn-'tis noon

Time flies-and soon

Night follows noon.

Prepare! Beware! Take care! Take care! For soon-so soon

Night follows noon,

Dark night the noon,—

Noon! noon! noon! noon!

To right, to left, the tiller turned,
In all its gaud, our painted prow.
Bend after bend our light keel spurned,
For sinuously the bayou's low

Dark waters 'neath the sunshine burned,
There in that smiling southern noon,
As if some giant serpent wound
Along the lush and mellow ground
To mark the path we chose to go;
When, in sweet hours remembered now,