The fire in the west burns low;

A fading gleam of light
Only remains, of the crimson glow
That made half heaven so bright:

And the weary day, in her shroud of gray,
Sighs out her life on the breast of night.

A cuckoo sat on a tree, and sang,

"Summer is coming, coming;

And a bee crept out from the hive, and began
Lazily humming, humming.

Anon

Yes, summer had come, and the cuckoo sang
His song through woodland and hollow:
"The summer is come; if you don't believe me,
You have only to ask the swallow."

Anon

PATRIOTIC

PATRIOTIC

OLD GLORY (A CHANT-ROYAL)1

"I have seen the glories of art and architecture and mountain and river. I have seen the sunset on Jungfrau, and the full moon rise over Mont Blanc; but the fairest vision on which these eyes ever looked was the flag of my country in a foreign land. Beautiful as a flower to those who love it, terrible as a meteor to those who hate, it is the symbol of the power and glory and the honor of fifty millions of Americans."- GEORGE F. HOAR.

ENCHANTED Web! A picture in the air,

Drifted to us from out the distance blue

From shadowy ancestors, through whose brave care
We live in magic of a dream come true;
With Covenanters' blue, as if were glassed
In dewy flower-heart the stars that passed.

O blood-veined blossom that can never blight!
The Declaration, like a sacred rite,

1 A prize poem, written by Emma Frances Dawson of San Francisco. Mr. John Boyle O'Reilly says of the above poem: "Emma Frances Dawson of San Francisco has added to our patriotic literature a poem that will rank forever with the immortal Star-spangled Banner' of Francis Scott Key, than which it is, in exalted imagery and power, a far grander production."

There are but few English chants-royal, the making of them having been called "a hard and thankless task." Edmund W. Gosse and Austin Dobson have each written one and in America, H. C. Bunner, Clinton Scollard and Ernest Whitney have written in this difficult form.