The boy with laugh and play
Fills out his little plan,
Still lisping day by day

Of how he'll be a man;

But can you to his childish brain
Make aught of coming manhood plain?

Let heaven be just above us,

Let God be e'er so nigh,

Yet howsoe'er He love us,

And howe'er much we cry,

There is no speech that can make clear
The thing "that doth not yet appear."

'Tis not that God loves mystery:

The things beyond us we can never know, Until up to their lofty height we grow, And finite grasps infinity.

THE AGE OF GOLD.

THE God that to the fathers
Revealed His holy will
Has not the world forsaken, -
He's with the children still.
Then envy not the twilight
That glimmered on their way;
Look up and see the dawning,
That broadens into day.

"T was but far off, in vision,
The fathers' eyes could see
The glory of the Kingdom,
The better time to be:
To-day, we see fulfilling

The dreams they dreamt of old;
While nearer, ever nearer,

Rolls on the age of gold.

With trust in God's free spirit,
The ever-broadening ray
Of truth that shines to guide us
Along our forward way,
Let us to-day be faithful,

As were the brave of old;
Till we, their work completing,
Bring in the age of gold!

PHILIP HENRY SAVAGE.

SAVAGE, PHILIP HENRY, an American poet, son of Rev. Minot Savage, was born at North Brookfield, Massachusetts, February 11, 1868. He was educated at Harvard University, graduating from there in 1893. Since 1896 he has been employed in the Boston Public Library. He has published "First Poems and Frag ments" (1895); "Poems" (1898).

SILKWEED.

LIGHTER than dandelion down,

Or feathers from the white moth's wing,
Out of the gates of bramble-town
The silkweed goes a-gypsying.

Too fair to fly in autumn's rout,
All winter in the sheath it lay ;
But now, when spring is pushing out,
The zephyr calls, "Away! Away !"

Through mullein, bramble, brake, and fern,
Up from their cradle-spring they fly,
Beyond the boundary wall to turn
And voyage through the friendly sky.

Softly, as if instinct with thought,
They float and drift, delay and turn;
And one avoids and one is caught
Between an oak-leaf and a fern;

And one holds by an airy line

The spider drew from tree to tree;

And if the web is light and fine,
'Tis not so light and fine as he!

By permission of Copeland & Day.

And one goes questing up the wall
As if to find a door; and then,
As if he did not care at all,

Goes over and adown the glen.

And all in airiest fashion fare
Adventuring, as if, indeed,

'T were not so grave a thing to bear
The burden of a seed !

FAGOTS.

IN Autumn, as the year comes round
(The seasons fall without a sound),
By slow and stealth an ashen hue
Comes on the green, comes on the blue.

The sticks I burned beneath a larch
The first bright day of tawny March
Gave out their heat and fell away
Successive into rose and gray.

Thus covertly, and term by term,
Like as the year, I grow infirm;

Thus spend my substance like the fire,
And like the last cold ash expire.

OCTOBER.

THIS Cool white morning by the wall
How welcome does the sunlight fall
To the curled aster, with its blue
Close-folded petals, out of view.
They open shining to the sun,
As if their year had just begun;
Nor guess (prophetic in the blast),
That this warm day may be the last

JOHN GODFREY SAXE.

SAXE, JOHN GODFREY, an American journalist and popular poet; born at Highgate, Vt., June 2, 1816; died at Albany, N. Y., March 31, 1887. He was graduated at Middlebury College in 1839, became a lawyer, and practised successfully until 1850, when he became editor and proprietor of the "Burlington Sentinel." He conducted this journal until 1856, soon after which he came to New York, and entered upon lecturing and other literary work. He had in the meantime put forth several volumes of poems, mostly humorous or satirical. In 1872 he became editor of the "Albany Journal," and took up his residence in that city. Several collected editions of his works have appeared; they include "Progress," a satire (1846); "New Rape of the Lock" (1847); "The Proud Miss McBride" (1848); "The Money-King, and Other Poems" (1859); "The Flying Dutchman" (1862); "Clever Stories of Many Nations (1864); "The Times, the Telegraph, and Other Poems" (1865); "The Masquerade" (1865); "Fables and Legends in Verse' (1872); "Leisure Day Rhymes" (1875).

RHYME OF THE RAIL.

SINGING through the forests, rattling over ridges,
Shooting under arches, rumbling over bridges,

Whizzing through the mountains, buzzing o'er the vale-
Bless me! this is pleasant, riding on the rail!

Men of different "stations" in the eye of Fame
Here are very quickly coming to the same.
High and lowly people, birds of every feather,
On a constant level travelling together!

Gentleman in shorts, looming very tall;
Gentleman at large, talking very small;
Gentleman in tights, with a looseish mien;
Gentleman in gray, looking rather green.

By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Gentleman quite old, asking for the news;
Gentleman in black, in a fit of blues;
Gentleman in claret, sober as a vicar;
Gentleman in tweed, dreadfully in liquor!

Woman with her baby, sitting vis-à-vis ;
Baby keeps a-squalling, woman looks at me,
Asks about the distance, says it's tiresome talking,
Noises of the cars are so very shocking!

Market-woman careful of the precious casket,
Knowing eggs are eggs, tightly holds her basket,
Feeling that a smash, if it came, would surely
Send her eggs to pot rather prematurely!

Singing through the forests, rattling over ridges,
Shooting under arches, rumbling over bridges,

Whizzing through the mountains, buzzing o'er the vale-
Bless me! this is pleasant, riding on the rail!

THE PUZZLED CENSUS-TAKER.

"Gor any boys?" the Marshal said
To a lady from over the Rhine;
And he lady shook her flaxen head,
And civilly answered, "Nein!" i

"Got any girls?" the Marshal said

To the lady from over the Rhine;
And again the lady shook her head,
And civilly answered, "Nein!"

"But some are dead?" the Marshal said
To the lady from over the Rhine;
And again the lady shook her head,
And civilly answered, "Nein!"

"Husband of course?" the Marshal said
To the lady from over the Rhine;
And again she shook her flaxen head,
And civilly answered, "Nein!"

▲ Nein, pronounced nine, is the German for "No.