Francis Alexander Durivage.

AMERICAN.

Durivage was born in Boston in 1814. His family name was Caillaud-du rivage being a territorial title. His father, an estimable teacher of the French language, married a sister of Edward Everett. Francis acquired early a good knowledge of French and Spanish. Before he was seventeen, he edited the Amateur, a Boston weekly periodical. He contributed to nearly all the leading magazines, and became noted as a humorist. A collection of his papers, under the signature of "The Old 'Un," illustrated by Darley, was published by Carey and Hart in 1849. He visited Europe six times, chicfly to study the great art collections. He is favorably known as an amateur artist, as well as for his poetry. William C. Bryant and Bayard Taylor were among the literary friends who praised and valued his poetical productions, the dramatic element in which is a distinguishing quality, to which they owe much of their effect.

ALL.

There hangs a sabre, and there a rein
With a rusty buckle and green curb-chain;
A pair of spurs on the old gray wall
And a mouldy saddle-well, that is all.

Come out to the stable, it is not far;
The moss-grown door is hanging ajar.
Look within. Here's an empty stall
Where once stood a charger, and that is all.

The good black steed came riderless home,
Flecked with blood-drops as well as foam.
Do you see that mound where the dead leaves fall?
The good black horse pined to death-that's all.

All? O God! it is all I can speak. Question me not. I am old and weak. His saddle and sabre hang on the wall,

Tite!

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The vicomte sits down with a ghastly air—
His vis-à-vis is an empty chair.
But he calls to the garçon, "Antoine!
Place a stool for the lady's feet."
"The lady, monsieur?" (in a quavering tone).
"Yes-when have you known me to breakfast alone?
Fill up her glass! Versez! Versez !
You see how white are her cheeks to-day.
Sip it, my darling, 'twas ordered for thee."
He raises his glass, "à toi, Mimi!"
The garçon shudders, for nothing is there
In the lady's place but an empty chair.
But still, with an air of fierce unrest,
The vicomte addresses an unseen guest.
"Leave us, Antoine; we have much to say,
And time is precious to me to-day."
When the garçon was gone he sprang up with a

start:

"Mimi is dead of a broken heart.

Could I think, when she gave it with generous joy,
A woman's heart such a fragile toy?
Her trim little figure no longer I see!
Would I were lying with thee, Mimi!
For what is life but a hell to me?
What splendor and wealth but misery?"
A jet of flame and a whirl of smoke!
A detonation the silence broke.
The landlord enters, and, lying there,
Is the dead vicomte, with a stony glare
Rigidly fixed on an empty chair.
"Il faut avertir le commissaire!
Ma foi! Chez Brébant ces choses sont rares!"

JERRY.

His joyous neigh, like the clarion's strain, When we set before him his hay and grain, And the rhythmic beat

Of his flying feet,

CHEZ BREBANT.

The vicomte is wearing a brow of gloom
As he mounts the stair to his favorite room.
"Breakfast for two!" the garçons say,
"Then the pretty young lady is coming to-day!"
But the patron mutters, à Dieu ne plaise!

I want no clients from Père la Chaise.
Silver and crystal! a splendid show!
And a damask cloth white as driven snow.

For the good horse sleeps

Where the tall grass weeps,

On the velvet edge of the emerald plain, By the restless waves of the billowy grain, And never will answer to voice or rein.

By whip-cord and steel he was never stirred,
For he only needed a whispered word,
And a slackened rein, to fly like a bird.

By loving hands was his neck caressedHands, like his own fleet limbs, at rest.

Through blinding snow, in the murkiest night,
With never a lamp in heaven alight-
With the angry river a sheet of foam,
Swiftly and safely he bore me home;
And I never resigned myself to sleep

Till I'd rubbed him down and bedded him deep.

If I ever can sit in the saddle again,

With foot in stirrup and hand on rein,

I shall look for the like of Jerry in vain.
Steed of the desert or jennet of Spain
Would ne'er for a moment make me forget
My favorite horse, my children's pet,
With his soft brown eye and his coat of jet.

He would have answered the trumpet's peal,
And charged on cannon and splintering steel;
But humbler tasks did his worth reveal.
To mill and to market, early and late;
On the brown field, tracing the furrow straight;
Drawing the carriage with steady gait-
Whatever the duty we had to ask,
Willingly he performed his task.

And when his life-work was all complete,
He was found in his stable, dead on his feet.
And, in spite of each and every fool
Whose brain and heart are hardened by rule,
I have reached the conclusion that on the whole,
The horse that we loved possessed a soul!

Aubrey Thomas De Vere.

Son of Sir Aubrey De Vere, the poet, De Vere, born in Ireland in 1814, has published several productions in verse: "The Waldenses, with other Poems" (1842); "The Infant Bridal, and other Poems" (1864). He is also the author of "Sketches of Greece and Turkey" (1850). His poems are marked by refinement and delicacy of expression, united with rare sweetness in the versification. "This gentle poet and scholar, the most spiritual of the Irish poets," says Mr. E. C. Stedman, "though hampered by a too rigid adoption of Wordsworth's theory, often has an attractive manner of his own."

THE TRUE BLESSEDNESS. Blessed is he who hath not trod the ways Of secular delights, nor learned the lore Which loftier minds are studious to abhor: Blessed is he who hath not sought the praise That perishes, the rapture that betrays; Who hath not spent in Time's vainglorious war His youth; and found—a school-boy at fourscore!— How fatal are those victories which raise

Their iron trophies to a temple's height

On trampled Justice; who desires not bliss,
But peace; and yet, when summoned to the fight,
Combats as one who combats in the sight

Of God and of His angels, seeking this
Alone, how best to glorify the right.

ADOLESCENTULE AMAVERUNT TE NIMIS.

"Behold! the wintry rains are past;

The airs of midnight hurt no more:

The young maids love thee. Come at last: Thou lingerest at the garden-door.

"Blow over all the garden; blow,

Thou wind that breathest of the south, Through all the alleys winding low, With dewy wing and honeyed mouth.

"But wheresoe'er thou wanderest, shape
Thy music ever to one Name:
Thou too, clear stream, to cave and cape
Be sure thou whisper of the same.

"By every isle and bower of musk

Thy crystal clasps, as on it curls, We charge thee, breathe it to the dusk; We charge thee, grave it in thy pearls."

The stream obeyed. That Name he bore
Far out above the moonlit tide.
The breeze obeyed. He breathed it o'er
The unforgetting pines, and died.

SONNET: HOW ALL THINGS ARE SWEET. Sad is our youth, for it is ever going, Crumbling away beneath our very feet; Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing In current unperceived, because so fleet; Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing: But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat; Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing: And still, oh still, their dying breath is sweet; And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us Of that which made our childhood sweeter still; And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us A nearer good to cure an older ill;

And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them Not for their sake, but His who grants them or

denies them.

James Hedderwick.

Hedderwick, editor of The Glasgow Citizen, a daily newspaper, was born in that city in 1814. He studied for a time at the London University, then became connected with the Press. In 1854 he published a small volume of poems, and in 1859 his "Lays of Middle Age, and other Poems."

FIRST GRIEF.

They tell me first and early love

Outlives all after-dreams;

But the memory of a first great grief To me more lasting seems.

The grief that marks our dawning youth
To memory ever clings,

And o'er the path of future years
A lengthened shadow flings.

Oh! oft my mind recalls the hour When to my father's home Death came, an uninvited guest, From his dwelling in the tomb.

I had not seen his face before-
I shuddered at the sight;
And I shudder yet to think upon
The anguish of that night!

A youthful brow and ruddy cheek
Became all cold and wan;

An eye grew dim in which the light
Of radiant fancy shone.

Cold was the cheek, and cold the brow,
The eye was fixed and dim;
And one there mourned a brother dead,
Who would have died for him!

I know not if 'twas summer then,
I know not if 'twas spring;
But if the birds sang in the trees,
I did not hear them sing.

If flowers came forth to deck the earth,
Their bloom I did not see;

I looked upon one withered flower,
And none else bloomed for me!

A sad and silent time it was Within that house of woe;

All eyes were dim and overcast, And every voice was low.

And from each cheek at intervals
The blood appeared to start,
As if recalled in sudden haste
To aid the sinking heart.

Softly we trod, as if afraid

To mar the sleeper's sleep, And stole last looks of his sad face For memory to keep.

With him the agony was o'er,

And now the pain was ours, As thoughts of his sweet childhood rose, Like odor from dead flowers.

And when at last he was borne afar From this world's weary strife, How oft in thought did we again Live o'er his little life!

His every look, his every word,

His very voice's tone,

Came back to us like things whose worth Is only prized when gone.

That grief has passed with years away,
And joy has been my lot;

But the one is long remembered,
And the other soon forgot.

The gayest hours trip lightly by,

And leave the faintest trace;

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But the deep, deep track that sorrow wears No time can e'er efface!

Thomas Westwood.

Westwood, a native of England, born in 1814, has produced "Beads from a Rosary" (1843); "The Burden of the Bell" (1850); "Berries and Blossoms" (1855); and "The Quest of the Sanegreal" (1868). All these are in verse. His most popular poem, "Little Bell," originally appeared in the London Athenæum. He says: "Though the writer is a childless man, he has a love and reverence for childhood which can scarcely be surpassed."

THE PET LAMB.

Storm upon the mountain, night upon its throne! And the little snow-white lamb, left alone-alone!

Hosmer, born in Avon, N. Y., in 1814, graduated at Hobart College, Geneva. He engaged in the practice of the law, but afterward held a position in the Custom-house. In early life he spent much of his time among the Indians, and some of his poems have reference to their tradi tions. His mother conversed fluently in the dialect of the Seneca tribe, and thus he became well acquainted with the legends of which he made use in his romance of "Yonnondis." In 1854 two volumes of his numerous poems were published by Redfield, New York.

BLAKE'S VISITANTS.

"Blake, the painter-poet, conceived that he had formed friendships with distinguished individuals of antiquity. He asserted that they appeared to him, and were luminous and majestic shadows. The most propitious time for their visits was from nine at night till tive in the morning."

The stars shed a dreamy light

The wind, like an infant, sighs;

My lattice gleams, for the queen of night
Looks through with her soft, bright eyes.
I carry the mystic key
That unlocks the mighty Past,
And, ere long, the dead to visit me
Will wake in his chambers vast.

The gloom of the grave forsake, Ye princes who ruled of yore! For the painter fain to life would wake Your majestic forms once more.

Ye brave, with your tossing plumes.

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Ye bards of the pale, high brow! Leave the starless night of forgotten tombs,— For my hand feels skilful now.

They come, a shadowy throng,

With the types of their old renownThe Mantuan bard, with his wreath of song, The monarch with robe and crown. They come!-on the fatal Ides Of March yon conqueror fell;

For the rich, green leaf of the laurel hides His baldness of forehead well.

I know, though his tongue is still,
By his pale, pale lips apart,

The Roman whose spell of voice could thrill
The depths of the coldest heart-
And behind that group of queens
Bedight in superb attire,

How mournfully Lesbiau Sappho leans
Her head on a broken lyre!

That terrible shade I know

By the scowl his visage wears, And the Scottish knight, his noble foe, By the broad claymore he bears. That warrior king who dyed In Saracen gore the sands, With his knightly harness on, beside The fiery Soldan stands.

Ye laurelled of old, all hail!
I love, in the gloom of night,

To rob the Past of his cloudy veil,

And gaze on your features bright. Ha! the first bright beam of dawn On my window redly plays, And back to their spirit homes have gone The mighty of other days!

TO A LONG SILENT SISTER OF SONG.
Where art thou, wood-dove of Hesperian climes,
The sweetest minstrel of our unshorn bowers?
In dreams, methinks, I faintly hear at times
An echo of thy silver-sounding rhymes:
Alas! that blight should fall on fairest flowers,
Eternal silence on angelic lips;-

That tender, starry eyes should know eclipse,
And mourning love breathe farewell to the hours!
Speak! has the grave closed on thee evermore,