In spicy woodpaths by its rapids straying,
    I hear, with lingering feet,
  Its liquid organ and the treetops playing
    Te Deums strangely sweet.

  I break the covert:  pictured far emerges
    On the enraptured sight
  The arrowy flow, green isles, a cascade’s surges,
    Foam-flaked in rosy light,

  Still pools, and purples of the sleepy sedges,
    The skyward forest-wall,
  Old sorrowing pines and hazy mountain-ledges,
    And soft blue over all.

  O golden hours of summer’s precious leisure! 
    From care and toil apart
  Fresh drawn, I taste the angler’s gentle pleasure
    With friend of equal heart.

  Trout leap and glitter, and the wild duck flutters
    Where beds of lilies blow: 
  A loon his long, weird lamentation utters,
    And Echo feels his woe.

  We see in hemlock shade the reedy shallow,
    Where, screened by dusky leaves,
  The guileless moose comes down to browse and wallow
    On still balsamic eves.

  The great blue heron starts as if we sought her,
    On pinions of surprise,
  And to our lure the darlings of the water
    In pink and crimson rise.

  Still gliding on, how throng the sweet romances
    Of Youth’s enchanted land! 
  A lordly eagle, as our bark advances,
    Glares on us, sad and grand.

Onward we float where mellow sunset glory
Streams o’er the lakelet’s breast,
And every ripple tells a golden story
Of the transfigured west.

Onward, into the evening’s calm and beauty,
To camp and sleep we go: 
Thrice bless’d are lives, in tasks of love and duty,
That end in such a glow! 
—­HORATIO NELSON POWERS.

THE RUIN OF ME.

(TOLD BY A YOUNG MARRIED MAN.)

I am Poverty scuffing about in old shoes and rubbers.  I was one of those who, at a good salary, think up smart things to put around in the corners of the Chicago Times.  When every newspaper, from the London Punch down, was making jokes about Elihu Burritt’s Sanskrit for the Fireside, it was I who beat them all by saying in solid nonpareil, “The best way to learn Sanskrit is to board in a family of Sanskritters.”  It was I who said, “Let the Communists carry pistols:  they may shoot each other;” and, “Sara Bernhardt’s children are articles of virtu.”

O quam me delectat Sara Bernhardt!  I love such diversified, such picturesque gifts.  Sculpture, painting, acting, writing!  This is why I loved Lydia, who was an adept at numberless arts and accomplishments.  She was a brunette with a clear, cream-tinged skin, red cheeks, rolling black eyes, ripe velvety lips, and hair of a beautiful hue and rich lustre—­raven black, yet purple as the pigeon’s wing in the sun.  I believe it is true that dark people belong to the pre-historic races:  centuries of sunlight are fused in their glowing complexion.  Blondes are beautiful—­both the rosy ones with pinkish eyelids and warm golden locks, and the pale ones with ash-colored hair, gray eyes and dark brows and lashes—­but a florid brunette excels them all.