In the little chirp from the field, and wood, Does no sound touch your motherhood?

That little dead bird on your bonnet,
Is it worth the cruel wrong;
The beauty you wear so proudly there,
Is the price of the silenced song;
The humming bird band on your velvet dress
Mocks your womanly tenderness.

I hear a cry from the woodland,
A voice from the forest dim;

A sound of woe from the sweet hedgerow,
From the willows and reeds that rim
The sedgy pool; from the meadow grass
I hear the pitiful sound, alas!

Can you not hear it, my sister,
Above the heartless behest,

Of fashion that stands, with cruel hands,
Despoiling the songful nest?
Above the voice have you never heard
The voice of the helpless, hunted bird?
Demorest's Monthly.

THE GIN FIEND.

1.

The Gin Fiend cast his eyes abroad,
And look'd o'er all the land,
And number'd his myriad worshippers
With his bird-like, long right hand.
He took his place in the teeming street,
And watched the people go;

Around and about, with a buzz and a shout,
Forever to and fro;

"And it's hip!" said the Gin Fiend, "hip, hurra! For the multitudes I see, Who offer themselves in sacrifice,

And die for the love of me!"

II.

There stood a woman on a bridge,

She was old, but not with years-
Old with excess, and passion, and pain,
And she wept remorseful tears

As she gave to her babe her milkless breast;
Then, goaded by its cry,

Made a desperate leap in the river deep,
In the sight of the passers-by!

"And it's hip!" said the Gin Fiend, "hip, hurra! She sinks;-but let her be!

In life or death, whatever she did,
Was all for the love of me!"

III.

There watch'd another by the hearth,
With sullen face and thin;

She utter'd words of scorn and hate
To one that stagger'd in.

Long had she watch'd, and when he came
His thoughts were bent on blood;

He could not brook her taunting look,

And he slew her where she stood.

"And it's hip!" said the Gin Fiend, "hip, hurra ! My right good friend is he;

He hath slain his wife, he hath given his life,
And all for the love of me!"

IV.

And every day, in the crowded way,
He takes his fearful stand,

And numbers his myriad worshippers

With his bird-like, long right hand;

And every day, the weak and strong,
Widows, and maids, and wives,
Blood-warm, blood-cold, young men and old,
Offer the Fiend their lives.

"And it's hip!" he says, "hip! hip! hurra!
For the multitudes I see;

That sell their souls for the burning drink,
And die for the love of me!"

FIRST SOLILOQUY OF A RATIONALISTIC CHICKEN.

Most strange! most queer!

Though so excellent a change!

Shades of the prison house, ye disappear;
My fettered thoughts have won a wider range
And like my legs are free.

Free now, to pry and poke and peep and peer,
And make these mysteries out.

Shall a free-thinking chicken live in doubt?
Yet now in doubt undoubtedly I am.
This problem's very heavy on my mind.
And I'm not one to either shirk or sham,
I won't be blinded, and I won't be blind.

Now let me see.

First I would know

How I did get in there, then
Where was I of yore?

Besides, why didn't I get out before ?
Dear me! Here are three puzzles
Out of plenty more.

Enough to give me pip upon the brain,

But let me think again,

How do I know I ever was inside?

Now I reflect, it is, I do maintain,

Less than my reason and beneath my pride

To think that I could dwell

In such a paltry, miserable cell

As that old shell.

Of course I couldn't.

How could I have been

Body and beak and feather, legs and wings,
And my deep heart's sublime imaginings
In there?

I meet the notion with profound disdain,
It's quite incredible, and I declare-
And I'm a chicken you can't deceive-
What I can't understand I won't believe.
Where did I come from then?
Ah, where indeed!

That is a riddle monstrous hard to read,
I have it! Why, of course,

All things are molded by some plastic force,
Out of some atom, somewhere up in space.
Fortuitously concurrent anyhow,

There now, that's plain

As the beak upon my face.

What's that I hear?

My mother cackling at me?

Just her way

So ignorant and prejudiced, I say.

So far behind the wisdom of the day,
What's old, I can't revere.

Hark at her!

"You're a silly chick, my dear,

That's quite as plain, alack,

As is the piece of shell upon your back!"
How bigoted! Upon my back indeed!
I don't believe it's there!

For I can't see it,

And I do declare,

For all her fond deceivin',

What I can't see, I never will believe in,
And that's all!

THE SLEEP-WALKING SCENE FROM

"MACBETH."

(Enter Lady Macbeth rubbing her hands.)

Yet here's a spot! Out! out, damned spot! out, I say! One, two,-why then 'tis time to do it! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when there's none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

The Thane of Fife had a wife-Where is she now? What! Will these hands ne'er be clean? No more o' that! my lord, no more o' that! You mar all with this starting!

Here's the smell of the blood still! All the perfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten this little hand! Oh! oh! oh!

Wash your hands! put on your night-gown! look not so pale! I tell you yet again Banquo's buried! He cannot come out of his grave! To bed! to bed! There's knocking at the gate! Come, come, come! Give me your hand! What's done cannot be undone! To bed! To bed! To bed!--Shakespeare.

THE CHILD-WIFE.

(Prize Selection, June, 1888, N. Mo. State Normal.)

All this time I had gone on loving Dora harder than ever. If I may so express it, I was steeped in Dora. I was not merely over head and cars in love with her, I was saturated through and through. I took night walks to Norwood where she lived, and perambulated round and round the house and garden for hours together: looking through crevices in the