tion alone is needed. And the college larity it may temporarily bring, shall which will do most to mold the present and to determine the future thought of America, will not be that one which shall give its students, to stimulate their appetites, the largest or the most versatile acquaintance with the widest range of things in the almost infinite diversity which is beginning to characterize our modern life; but that other, which, through whatever popularity or unpopu most steadily, effectively and nobly, hold the best minds entrusted to its care, to those themes in which statesmen, poets, historians, philosophers and divines, have always found their most satisfying as well as their most stimulating food, the themes which occupied Socrates and Plato, Paul and Aquinas, Milton and Elizabeth Browning, and in which rest alike the destinies of nations and of men. SOME OF COLERIDGE'S VERSES. N examination of the various editions of Coleridge's poetry shows a certain incompleteness and irregularity in the contents, so that one never knows in buying a so-called complete edition whether it is reasonably full or not. I have looked in vain through sundry issues to find a pretty bit of verse of his which I lately discovered in "The Keepsake," printed in London in 1830. Only some very recent editions contain it. The first issue of "Sibylline Leaves" and the earlier poems published by Joseph Cottle include many pieces which were afterward rejected and are now mostly restored in editions put forth within a few years. The one I give here is from "The Keepsake"; it will, I imagine, be new to many who know Coleridge's poetry, in the main, quite thoroughly. SONG, EX IMPROVISO, ON HEARING A SONG IN PRAISE OF A LADY'S BEAUTY: "Tis not the lily brow I prize, Nor roseate cheeks, nor sunny eyes,- A thousand-fold more dear to me The poem entitled, "Love, Hope and Patience in Education," said to be the last one which Coleridge wrote, is a contribution to "The Keepsake" with that just quoted; but its first title was "The Poet's Answer to a Lady's Question Respecting the Accomplishments most desirable in an Instructress of Children," piece entitled "Mutual Passion," that is alleged to be altered and modernized from an old poet, a claim which very likely is chiefly pretence. A competent literary friend who has run through the first edition of that book for me and ver ified some of my searching, says of this piece: "It is a very pretty love poem, and never ought to have been dropped. Whoever the old poet was, I will guarantee that nine-tenths of the work is S. T. C.'s, with a good dash of the same initials in the remaining part." But the poem is now among those restored. The editors of Coleridge's poetry as well as his family exercised some just discretion, with no little caprice, in making up the pieces which should be used. "The Foster-mother's Tale: a Dramatic Fragment," that was issued in the "Lyr ical Ballads " in which Wordsworth had a partnership, has had its vicissitudes of appearance and suppression. Neither this nor 66 Mutual Passion," I believe, is to be found in the old Pickering threevolume edition of Coleridge's Poetical and Dramatic Works, published in 1834, the year of the author's death. Nor are they in the same publisher's one-volume edition issued in 1848, fourteen years after that date. The "Mutual Passion" of which I give the first, to show the consists of five stanzas, alike in form, quality of the piece: In the "Sibylline Leaves" there is a These verses are now properly restored. Among the poems in Joseph Cottle's volume of 1797, not so often found now, is one addressed to Cottle and a sonnet addressed to Lloyd. Main's "Treasury of Sonnets" gives that by Coleridge on Nature. "Christabel" and "The Ancient Mariner" experienced several modifications by the hand of the author. My friend whom I have quoted already, calls my attention to a stanza from the latter poem, as published in 1817, which I, myself, had observed, and which Coleridge dropped along with other lines. reads as follows; and, except in Linton and Stoddard's fine collection of poetry, will rarely be found: A gust of wind sterte up behind And whistle through his bones; It Through the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth Half whistles and half groans. A good deal might be said concerning Coleridge's verse and its various fortunes, for which fuller space than I can command would be needed. His productive poetical period was brief, for devotion to philosophy shoved the muse aside; while its fruits were often cared for by other hands, as they might chance to be put forth. However, I cannot close brief my reference to this author without reproducing two short pieces of his which I think are very slightly known. They show good internal evidence of the hand that wrote them; but, either for lack of perfect authenticity, or for some other reason, I believe the first appears in no collection of Coleridge's poetry, and the second in only one, not generally familiar: CHORAL SONG OF ILLYRIAN PEASANTS. For the shepherds must go With lance and bow To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day. Leave the hearth, and leave the house, Find grannam a sunny seat, To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day! WATER BALLAD. "Come hither, gently rowing, I'd have thee by my side. "Good boatman, prithee haste thee, I seek our fatherland!" "Say, when I there have placed thee, Dare I demand thy hand?" "A maiden's head can never So hard a point decide; Row on, row on, forever I'd have thee by my side!" The happy bridal over, The wanderer ceased to roam, For, seated by her lover, The boat became her home; And still they sang together, As steering o'er the tide : "Row on through wind and weather, Forever by my side." Joel Benton. EVENING. THE softening sunset's last faint ray Has faded from the heavens away; The raven shades of Evening drape The mourning earth with filmy crape, In memory of the dying Day. Eve for awhile asserts her sway, And 'round the chilly form of Day She wraps her veil of downy hair; Night stealthy takes the mask to wear, Till Morning tears it swift away Clarence H. Urner. BY MARAE ELLIS RYAN. "KNOW Karl Denny o' these parts? Well, I should say I did-an' his daddy afore him. His gran father an' my daddy cleared the first bit o' lan' in the township-young chaps, both of 'em, then. Lor! lor! them was times worth hearin tell of-wolves an' bears all through this country then, an' a right smart sprinklin' o' wild cats; an' the folks a havin' to go on creetur' back over the mountains for their salt, an' a havin' to burn up timber to get potash to pay for it-'bout the only thing they had to trade in them days, 'cept hides. Yes, sir; this was pretty much all wilderness; an' I've heard my daddy tell us how-Oh, yes, Karl Denny. Well, just pull your chair back under the porch where it's shady. Ben 'll have the buckboard ready fer yeh in half-anhour. Traveler are yeh? Jest to see the country. Lor'! lor'! I'd reckon that folks as had money to spend gaddin' round in strange parts, would a heap ruther settle down comfortable at home an' enjoy it; but there's no countin' on tastes. What might your business be ? Newspaper work; shoo! yeh don't say so! I never saw one to know him but once afore; that was when we had the first hangin' scrape in our neighborhood, an' they sent a reporter chap out to the courthouse from one them big Pittsburg papers; must 'a cost 'em a sight, for he boarded at the tavern all the time-a dollar slap out o' his pocket fer every day that trial lasted. I reckon it was worth it—a heap o' hard swearin' wa' done in that case. Yes, sirree! yeh see it was Mose Henderson's boy, Jim, as— "Denny. Yes, yes, that was what we started on. Well, talkin' o' curious people, he was one vergin' on loony we all reckoned. Good enough stock he come of too. Zeb Denny, his daddy, was sheriff of the county once--an uncommon, hard-headed man. The softest thing he ever done was when he got married. Mighty curious that was. He was nigh forty-an old bach'. He courted an' married the girl in less than a week. Dutch, she was— had come over to live with some kinsfolk, an' when she got here they had moved out West in wagons, not knowin' jest where they'd stop; so she did n't know how to follow them, an' here she was all alone an' without any money—a thin, scared-to-death lookin' creetur', with eyes as always looked at yeh like a dumb man's kind o' tryin' to speak and could n't. A right smart of learnin' she had-could talk several lingos-and had come from some high-faluten family as had trouble in politics and lost all their money. It beats time how them kingdoms an' monarchies is always a janglin' in furren parts. Well, Zeb, he up and asks her to have him, as he needed a housekeeper pretty bad; an' she did. Lor'! lor! how folks did open their eyes; but Zeb Denny wasn't a carin', though he soon found he hadn't got much of a bargain, for she'd never done real work in her life; but she buckled down to it like a soldier, and soon learned how to cook an' bake an' sich: and fixed over her queer clothes to try an' look more like our women-folk. But it wa' no use; she never did not a bit more than if a trembly, skittish, fancy breed of a mare wa' let loose in the same field with our farm stock an' tried to do the same work. "By an' by their boy, young Zeb, was borned red-headed; he was like his daddy. Then three years after come the twins, Frank an' Hank, an' a fine pair they wa'-stout as young oxen. Zeb was tickled to death, but Retta-that wa' his wife's name-did n't seem to want 'em. When they told her they was both boys, she just covered up her face an' cried quiet like. My woman was there at the time. Some o' them tried to chirk her up a tellen' her any woman'd be proud o' such boys, an' a tellen' how Zeb was pleased; but all she said was: "The husband is good to be glad, but it is the daughters who bring ease to the mother's heart;" that was her queer Dutch way o' speakin'. "Well, them boys jest growed like bad weeds, an' was too rough fer her low, soft sort o' words to keep 'em straight. A while afore the next baby came, Retta was real delicate like, an' so nervous and shaky that Zeb had to get a girl to do the work. Jim Hazen's girl they got, married to my boy Ben since. She said all Retta 'peared to wish for was that the baby might be a girl, but it was n't. No, sir, it were a boy, but different, a heap different from the others. It had yellow hair an' blue eyes like the mother's, an' jest the same kind of a look in them. That, sir, was Karl Denny. "He was the last, an' by degrees she got over wantin' a girl so bad, fer the baby was a'most like one-a toddlin' close to her, an' never getten' rough like the rest. The twins never took any stock in him; he seemed made o' different stuff. He growed tall an' slim an' gentle, like Retta, an' the more Zeb an' the boys plagued him fer his soft ways, jest that much more he stuck around the house. He was a reg'lar 'mother's boy,' an Zeb did n't often see one with out t'other. She taught him out o' some furren books she had brought along; though he was n't much in the 'rithmetic class at school, he seemed to study an' learn anything from her. At school the boys called him Miss Denny, an' sometimes they'd get into his desk and steal the poetry stuff he was always a writen', until at last he quit school altogether and studied his lessons to home. He'd scribble rhymes over every bit o' paper he could get, an' his mother put tunes to some o' them. Yeh know the Dutch have great heads fer music, an' at sundown, as Karl would be a goin' fer the cows, Zeb could hear him a singin' o' his queer songs; an' lor'! lor'! how them cattle did know him; one call from him 'd bring them a troopin' from the furthest corner o' the field-a wonderful way he had with dumb things. "Well, Zeb kind o' let him alone, an' not sayin' much, though he was shiftless considerin' the work the rest o' the boys done. But when Karl was nineteen, an' had n't done much but help around the house an' lay out in the woods a writin' o' poetry an' stories for Retta to read, then Zeb put his foot down, as was natural he should. He wanted Karl to learn the blacksmith's trade. Well, I guess there was quite a time among them, 'cordin to Hank, who told us all about it, fer Karl told Zeb he wanted to go to school an get more learnin' fer he intended to be a writer— a writer, mind yeh-fer the papers; him as had never been in a real town in his life, an did n't know nothen' 'cept what Retta had taught him. Zeb thought he was clean crazy, an' then it came out as he had sent some o' his rhymes an' a story to some paper in the East, an' they promised to print 'em an pay fer 'em; an' Karl, proud as Punch, brought out the letter the editor had writ him, an' a story he was goin' to finish fer the same man. "Yeh see, Zeb had a hot temper, an' thought it were all tomfoolery in him thinken' o' maken' his liven' that way, 'stid o' tacklin' honest work; fer o' course them stories were all lies. He swore he would n't have no such excuse fer laziness on his place, an' the first thing they knew he had pitched the letter an' story right into the fireplace. It was winter, an' a blazin' big fire they had. Karl tried to reach the papers, but they'd dropped right down against the back log where the coals were hottest, an' there was no use o' tryin'. Well, it seemed as if Karl was crazy; he just stood there a lookin' at the paper a curlin' up an' gettin' black; the tears was a rollin' down his face, an' him a big fellow o' nineteen! But he did n't say a word. Retta she tried to comfort him a tellin' him he could write it over again, an' then he jest dropped down aside of her a sobbin' an' a cryin' as if it was a deathblow he'd got, an' he kept a sayin' ‘he never could, he never could.' "Somehow he seemed to think that one story was somethin' better than he ever had done before, or ever could do again, an' that he could n't a done it of his own accord, but that it was what ye'd call a sort o' inspiration thing, and that it would never come to him again. That, o' course was a lie. There was n't never nothin' inspired 'cept the Bible. "Howsomever, that's the way he talked of it, an' spoke as if the people in it were real people-his children-an' that they had died; an' he never could speak o' them without the tears a showin' in his eyes. So o' course that give folks reason to think him loony. And Zeb, he 'lowed it was all the poetry writin' as made him so, an' he should n't write another line. Retta she tried to persuade Zeb to let him go on awhile longer jest as he had been-a tryin' to write again or do as he liked till he kinder got over his grievin'. But Zeb was hard-headed, and sort o' disgusted to think a boy o'his'd ever be such a fool, an' he said no; the boy wasn't of age, an' until he was he 'd got to mind what he was told, an' work on the farm 'stid o' scribblin' lies. "Well, Retta had always taught her boys that what Zeb said was law. Them Dutch always look to the man o'the house as if he was a lord; anyway that's the way she had been raised. So she could n't give Karl no encouragement to go agin his duty, an' Karl jest went to work like the rest. But no one ever heard him singin' his songs through the fields after that; it seemed as if all the life had gone out o' him, for he went around sulky like, an' not talkin' to any one 'cept Retta. At last the other boys would n't sleep with him; they said he jabbered so in his dreams, an' talked an' went on about the writin's that come into his head that he dare n't write down, an' he knew they 'd be gone before the time come that he would be of age; so it was n't much wonder the boys wanted to get away from him. "The first that I judged fer sure that he was loony was in the spring. I'd gone over to Denny's place with an axe I wanted ground. Retta told me to sit down while she called Frank to turn fer towards the north-Kitteries Pond, they used to call it; has no signs of inlet nor outlet, yet the water is always fresh, and of a different sort from our spring an' creek water-kind o' queer where it comes from-an' I was taken aback as well as Retta to think he'd done that tramp with nothin' to eat. He dropped down tired like in a chair, not 'pearin to see me, an' then I heard him a talkin' loony fer sure. An' queer as it sounded, the words stuck in my mind, till I can almost hear his voice as he was a sayin' 'em; 't wa' curious, but Karl always had a way o' speakin' that people were bound to remember in spite o' themselves. He held out the posies to her. "Take 'em, mother,' he said; 'it seemed a pity to bring 'em from their home under the pines; but I knowed you loved 'em so; they looked like little pink stars in the brown leaves, an' it was so restful and quiet where they lived, with the scent o' the pines about 'em, and the washin' o' the little waves a makin' such music, an' the birds a chatterin' an' tellin' each other that spring has come.' 666 Yes, yes, my Karl, a great pleasure it must 'a been out there in the early morning,' Retta said, kind a chimin' in with his vagaries. "A pleasure an' a sadness both, mother,' he said, a holdin' to her hands. 'They should n't call it Silver Lake; there is no brightness about it. The dark pines gather too close around, an' their shadows are too deep for any silvery gleams to fall across it. So beautiful it is, but so lonely away up there on the hills, with only the hills, not even a little brook, to bring joy or laughter to it. In comin' away I felt as if it was a human thing I was a leavin' alone there, with no hope of ever knowin' the happiness of its kind.' 666 "You must not feel things so deeply, my Karl,' said Retta, a tryin' to turn his mind a little. 'Souls like yours suffer so much it is not well for them to dwell on sad thoughts, and the little lake may after all be very happy.' 666 'Right, my mother,' said he; 'it may be so; it is with the lake as, perhaps, with people. We are sad when we see those who are silent and alone, an' we pity them because they are not like others, and yet them people may have hidden in their |