When playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers,—
The violet, the pink, the jassamine,-

I pricked them into paper with a pin,

(And thou wast happier than myself the whileWouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and smile,) Could those few pleasant days again appear,

Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here?
I would not trust my heart, the dear delight
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might

But no

-

what here we call our life is such,

So little to be loved, and thou so much,
That I should ill requite thee to constrain
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.

Thou- as a gallant bark, from Albion's coast,
(The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed,)
Shoots into port at some well-havened isle,
Where spices breathe and brighter seasons smile:
There sits quiescent on the floods, that show
Her beauteous form reflected clear below,
While airs impregnated with incense play
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay,-
So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the shore
"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar,"
And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide
Of life long since has anchored by thy side.
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest,
Always from port withheld, always distressed,-
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed,
Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost;
And day by day some current's thwarting force
Sets me more distant from a prosperous course.

Yet O, the thought that thou art safe, and he! -
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me.
My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise,—
The son of parents passed into the skies.
And now, farewell! - Time, unrevoked, has run
His wonted course; yet what I wished is done.
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain,
I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again,-
To have renewed the joys that once were mine,
Without the sin of violating thine;

And, while the wings of fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft,—
Thyself removed, they power to soothe me left.

THE MOTHER OF FRANCES WILLARD

BY ANNA ADAMS GORDON

There are not many men, and as yet but few women, of whom when you think or speak it occurs to you that they are great," said Miss Willard.

66

What is the line that could mark such a sphere? To my mind it must include this trinity-greatness of thought, of heart, of will. There have been men and women concerning whose greatness of intellect none disputed, but they were poverty-stricken in the region of the affections, or they were Lilliputians in the realm of the will. There have been mighty hearts,

beating strong and full as a ship's engine, but they were mated to a 'straightened forehead.' There have been Napoleonic wills, but unbalanced by strong power of thought and sentiment - they were like a cyclone or a wandering star. It takes force centrifugal and force centripetal to balance a character to the ellipse of a true orbit.

"My mother, my Saint Courageous, was great in the sense of this majestic symmetry. The classic writer who said, 'I am human, and whatever touches humanity touches me,' could not have been more worthy to utter the words than was this Methodist cosmopolite who spoke them to me within a few days of her ascent to heaven. She had no pettiness. It was the habit of her mind to study subjects from the point of harmony. She did not say, 'Wherein does this Baptist or this Presbyterian differ from the creed in which I have been reared?' But it was as natural to her as it is to the rose to give forth fragrance to say to herself and others: Wherein does this Presbyterian or Baptist harmonize with the views that are dear to me?' Then she dwelt upon that harmony and through it brought those about her into oneness of sympathy with herself. She was occupied with great themes. I never heard a word of gossip from her lips. She had no time for it. Her life illustrated the poet's line:

There is no finer flower on this green earth than courage.

"My mother had courage of intellect and heart, and physical courage as well, beyond any other woman I have known. 'We are saved by hope,' was the motto

of her life. This is our part and all the part we have,' she used to say. The existence and love of God are the pulse of our being, whether we live or die.' "Some characters have a great and varied landscape, and a light like that of Raphael's pictures; others show forth some strong, single feature in a light like that of Rembrandt; some have headlands and capes, bays and skies, meadows and prairies and seas. The more scenery there is in a character, the greater it is the more it ranges from the amusing to the sublime. My mother's nature had in it perspective, atmosphere, landscape of earth and sky.

"She was not given to introspection, which is so often the worm in the bud of genius. They are not great who counsel with their fears.' Applied Christianity was the track along which the energy of her nature was driven by the Divine Spirit.

"The fortunes of the great white-ribbon cause gave her a pedestal to stand upon. She had been, in her beautiful home, a mother so beloved that she drew all her household toward her as the sun does the planets round about him, but she became a mother to our whole army. She came to the kingdom for a sorrowful time, when the homes were shadowed over all the land and her motherly nature found a circle as wide as the shadow cast upon the republic by the nation's dark eclipse. Perhaps, until then, she had not been a radical so pronounced as she became in these later battle years, but what she saw and learned and suffered, out in the cross-currents of society and the

great world, made her as strong a believer in the emancipation of woman as any person whom I have ever met. She had no harsh word for anybody; no criticism on the past. She recognized the present situation as the inevitable outcome of the age of force, but her great soul was suffused to its last fiber with the enthusiasm for woman. She believed in her sex; she had pride in it; she regarded its capacities of mental and moral improvement as illimitable, but at the same time she was a devoted friend to men. How could she be otherwise with a husband true and loyal and with a loving and genial son? All her ideas on the woman question were but a commentary upon her devotion to that larger human question which is the great circle of which the woman question is but an arc."

66

The following reference to Madam Willard's charming methods of child culture is given by her daughter: She never expected us to be bad children. I never heard her refer to total depravity as our inevitable heritage; she always said when we were cross, 'Where is my bright little girl that is so pleasant to have about? Somebody must have taken her away and left this little creature here who has a scowl upon her face.' She always expected us to do well. She used to say that a little child is a figure of pathos. Without volition of its own, it finds itself in a most difficult scene; it looks around on every side for help, and we who are grown way-wise should make it feel at all times tenderly welcome, and nourish it in the