Nay, pass! thou great prince Gentle Heart! 
Crowned with the deathless days of Art—­
To that far country—­old, yet ever new—­
The land where all the dreams are true.

ARTHUR KETCHUM.
Williams Literary Monthly.

Lizy Ann.

“My darter?” Yes, that’s Lizy Ann
Ez full o’ grit ez any man
’T you ever see!  She does the chores
Days when I can’t git out-o’-doors
‘Account o’ this ’ere rheumatiz,
And sees to everything there is
To see to here about the place,
And never makes a rueful face
At housework, like some women do,
But does it well—­and cheerful, too.

There’s mother—­she’s been bedrid now
This twenty year.  And you’ll allow
It takes a grist o’ care and waitin’
To tend on her.  But I’m a-statin’
But jest the facts when this I say: 
There’s never been a single day
That gal has left her mother’s side
Except for meetin’, or to ride
Through mud and mire, through rain or snow,
To market when I couldn’t go.

“She’s thirty-five or so?” Yes, more
Than that.  She’s mighty nigh twoscore. 
But what’s the odds?  She’s sweet and mild
To me and mother as a child. 
There doesn’t breathe a better than
Our eldest darter, Lizy Ann!

“Had offers?” Wal, I reckon; though
She ne’er told me nor mother so. 
I mind one chap—­a likely man—­
Who seemed clean gone on Lizy Ann,
And yet she let the feller slide,
And he’s sence found another bride.

The roses in her cheeks is gone,
And left ’em kinder pale and wan. 
Her mates is married, dead, or strayed
To other places.  Youth nor maid
No longer comes to see her.  Yet
You’ll hear no murmur of regret. 
“My life’s a part o’ heaven’s own plan,”
She often says.  Thet’s Lizy Ann.

EDGAR F. DAVIS.
Bowdoin Quill.

Be Thou a Bird, My Soul.

Be thou a bird, my soul, and mount and soar
    Out of thy wilderness,
    Till earth grows less and less,
    Heaven, more and more.

Be thou a bird, and mount, and soar, and sing,
    Till all the earth shall be
    Vibrant with ecstasy
    Beneath thy wing.

Be thou a bird, and trust, the autumn come,
    That through the pathless air
    Thou shalt find otherwhere
    Unerring, home.

A.G.C.
Kansas University Weekly.

God’s Acre.

Oh, so pure the white syringas! 
  Oh, so sweet the lilac bloom
In the Arboretum growing
  Near a granite tomb! 
By the arching pepper-branches
  Let us tender silence keep;
We have come into God’s Acre,
  Where the children sleep.

In the trees the quail are calling
  To the rabbits at their play,
While the little birds, unknowing,
  Sing their lives away;
In the night-time through the branches
  Wistfully the young stars peep,
But, with all these playmates round them,
  Still the children sleep.