ordinary an' strange instrooments. The next thing I know, the music marster lifted up his hands, in one of which he held a stick, an' there was a mighty rush an' roar of sound, what made me almost jump out of my seat,—it was a piece by Moscart they was playin' I learned afterwards— like thunder, but gradually it subsided down, an' afore I know it, there was the robins singin', hundreds of 'em, all at onct, jest as clear as could be, an' when the robins. stopped a minnit, the song-sparrers begun,—an' then the robins would come in again, high an' low, an' up an' down, everywhere. Then came occasional claps o' thunder, an' more wind an' disturbances, an' it ended.

I was young then an' onrepressible, I simply wiggled with happiness, I was so glad; but then they began more pieces, long ones, nothin' but sound, without any toons. I couldn't understand it; it sort o' stunned me, it was so big, an' I grew tired of it. But after awhile a man sat down to the piany an' played a thing Miss Helen called a rhapsordy by Leesed. I feel like I can never forget it. It began soft an' sort o' dreamy an' made me think of April when the grass is first gettin' green; then came a shower sudden an' quick an' when it melted away into sunshine it was May; an' a wonderful sweet melody went through an' through it, I knowed it, an' yet I didn't know it; it kep' comin' where I could almost git it, an' then slippin' away into another toon I didn't know; then it came faster an' faster, an' I grew exciteder an' exciteder. Finerly it came so fast I couldn't breath, it 'peer'd to me; an' then all on a sudden it burst out into the song of thrush, clear an' loud.

I guess I forgot all about where I was, I stood right. up an' pressed my hands to my head, an' bent forward. an' listened with all my strength. It was like a thrush in heaven!

I didn't hear anything more; that wonderful rapsordy filled me as if I was a bell an' kep' resoundin' to it. I couldn't say a word, I was too glad.

All that night I dreamed of birds, of great choruses of 'em, of real birds I mean, which made a wonderful great harmony; and that above 'em all was the voice of the thrush, penetratin', powerful, beautiful beyond all my words to tell.

When, in the mornin', Miss Helen asked about the concert, I told her it was as fine as man could make a concert, I thought. Then when she looked pleased an'a little surprised I said, “Miss Helen, in the winter you told me to listen to the birds, if I wanted to hear a orchestry; an' more, I must learn to love their music, if I wanted to be a musician myself. Well, you know I've listened to them all the Spring, an' now I have listened to another orchestry, the kind I wanted to belong to. But it is after all, only an imitashun, Miss Helen, the music this orchestry plays; very lovely, I know, yet still a imitashun; it does the robin pretty well, an' the songsparrow fairly, an' the orioles; the thrush most marvellous. But it aint real, there 'aint the naturality in it as if it was played out o' the heart because it couldn't help bein' played. There 'aint the sky, nor the green fields, nor the woods in it, nor the breeze in the leaves, nor the flowers; there 'aint the real ring of Spring in it! I've heard both orchestries now, Miss Helen, thanks to you, man's an' God's, an' I like God's best!"

There! the sun's dropped below the hills. Scamper off to yer supper now, or you'll be late-Uncle Ben must see to gettin' the cows in.

De Temporibus et Moribus.

THE POETRY OF EDWARD ROWLAND SILL.

It was remarked in a recent review that never in the the history of modern literature has really good verse been so plentiful as now. Magazine editors are constantly refusing productions which are not merely correct in verse-form, but poetical in spirit; and the host of lesser poets is marshalling in greater numbers every day. There is a danger entailed by this embarrassment of metrical riches, and it is the very real danger of mediocrity. Too much of what is good does not often produce what is great. And so it becomes necessary, when a new writer of verse makes his appearance in our magazines, to test very carefully his claims to admission into even the lowest grade of the fraternity of poets, before we dare to hope that he may become the new poet for whom the whole literary world is watching.

When in 1887, Edward Rowland Sill died, America lost a man who in the opinion of all had successfully passed the test, and who in the opinion of many was destined to fulfil the great hope. He left behind him some sixty short poems and sonnets, most of which were first published in magazines; and besides these, one longer poem, "The Hermitage."

Of the former, the most ambitious is the "Venus of Milo"; the others are each the brief expression of some single earnest thought, with here and there a purely descriptive poem, like "The North Wind." It is in "The Hermitage" that we can study best, because at greatest length, the workmanship of Sill.

In that first requisite of poetry, simplicity, he is not found wanting. There is hardly a superfluous line, a twisted expression or a fantastic image in all his work.

A few verses from one of his short poems, "Wiegenlied," will perhaps show the charm of his perfect simplicity as well as any other extract.

With all Sill's simplicity, there is no want of melody. Rhythm, perhaps, the voluptuous cadences of Swinburne, he lacks; his meter is unstudied and free. But where can one find anything more musical than the lines in "The Hermitage," where he describes the sound of a mountain brook?

"I listen to the chords that sink and swell
From many a little fall and babbling run.
That hollow gurgle is the deepest bass;
Over the pebbles gush contralto tones,

While shriller trebles trinkle merrily,

Running like some enchanted fingered flute
Endless chromatics."

And if he has the poet's ear, he has also the artist's
Witness this picture :-

eye.

"On the brown shining beach, all ripple-carved,

Gleams now and then a pool; so smooth and clear

That, though I cannot see the plover there
Pacing its farther edge (so much he looks
The color of the sand), yet I can trace
His image hanging in the glassy brine-
Slim legs and rapier beak-like silver-plate
With such a pictured bird clean-etched upon it.
Beyond, long curves of little shallow waves

Creep, tremulous with ripples, to the shore,
Till the whole bay seems slowly sliding in,

With edge of snow that melts against the sand."

So much for Sill's power of expression: now for the thought that he had to give the world. He was a New Englander, and therefore thought to him was far more than expression. There are two characteristics of the face which looks out at us from the frontispiece of his little white volume, that are especially striking. These characteristics are sadness and strength; and sadness and strength are the key-notes of his thought.

There is an undercurrent of melancholy running through almost all his verse; even below the ripples of a whimsical mood like that expressed in "Five Lives," one can feel the steady flow of that saddest thought, which comes to us all at times, the thought of the uselessness and insignificance of human life. There is an intensely personal pathos in such poems as "Service" and " Before I Go"; they are the almost prophetic utterances of one who foresaw that his work must be laid aside before it was fairly begun; but apart from instances like these, we can feel everywhere that the spirit of the age finds expression in the poetry of this New England man. Not a cynical, fin de siècle pessimism, but the nobler sadness of a Matthew Arnold.

And yet there is a world of difference between Matthew Arnold and Sill, and it is just here that the second dominant characteristic of the latter appears. There is in Sill a resolute optimism, which, while it will not be led by a false light, and is by no means sure that it has found the true light, yet insists that there is a true light. One cannot better compare Sill's point of view with Arnold's than by comparing the solutions which they offer to the great problem of human happiness.

Arnold says: Nine-tenths of the suffering in a human. life comes from its dependence on other lives. If you would know how to live calmly, strongly, beyond the