;
The mother-heart is stilled, alas!--But O
The mother-love abides eternally.

TO MY SISTER

A BELATED OFFERING FOR HER BIRTHDAY

These books you find three weeks behind
Your honored anniversary
Make me, I fear, to here appear
Mayhap a trifle cursory.--
Yet while the Muse must thus refuse
The chords that fall caressfully,
She seems to stir the publisher
And dealer quite successfully.

As to our _birthdays_--let 'em run
Until they whir and whiz!
Read Robert Louis Stevenson,
And hum these lines of his:--
"The eternal dawn, beyond a doubt,
Shall break on hill and plain
And put all stars and candles out
Ere we be young again."

A MOTTO

The _Brightest_ Star's the _modestest_,
And more'n likely writes
His motto like the lightnin'-bug's--
_Accordin' To His Lights_.

TO A POET ON HIS MARRIAGE

MADISON CAWEIN

Ever and ever, on and on,
From winter dusk to April dawn,
This old enchanted world we range
From night to light--from change to change--
Or path of burs or lily-bells,
We walk a world of miracles.

The morning evermore must be
A newer, purer mystery--
The dewy grasses, or the bloom
Of orchards, or the wood's perfume
Of wild sweet-williams, or the wet
Blent scent of loam and violet.

How wondrous all the ways we fare--
What marvels wait us, unaware!...
But yesterday, with eyes ablur
And heart that held no hope of Her,
You paced the lone path, but the true
That led to where she waited you.

ART AND POETRY

TO HOMER C. DAVENPORT

"Wess," he says, and sort o' grins,
"Art and Poetry is twins.
'F I could draw as you have drew,
Like to jes' swap pens with you."

HER SMILE OF CHEER AND VOICE OF SONG

ANNA HARRIS RANDALL

Spring fails, in all its bravery of brilliant gold and green,--
The sun, the grass, the leafing tree, and all the dazzling scene
Of dewy morning--orchard blooms,
And woodland blossoms and perfumes
With bird-songs sown between.

Yea, since _she_ smiles not any more, so every flowery thing
Fades, and the birds seem brooding o'er her silence as they sing--
Her smile of cheer and voice of song
Seemed so divinely to belong
To ever-joyous Spring!

Nay, still she