The Indianapolis journal., 1893-05-21
OFFERINGS OF THE POETS.

Memory sketch.
Above the bayou, softly bright
With sDronal of silver rays,
Through teecy films of pearly haze
And rings CT rosy halo-light,
Across the sweet October night,
The rising full-moon rode;
And lifting airily its load
or leaf and f1uit, and tangled fret
OF little twigs. while newly glowed
Her perfect disk, a linden showed
In graceful silhouette.
And east and westward. far away.
In leagues OF mist the marshes lay;
A pallid wilderness, whereon
Vague ferns and ghostly grasses crew.
Tall mOon-tipped rushes. and afew
Weird water-willows, faint of hue,
And sedges slim and wan.
So spectral, yet so strangely fair
All things stood dimly yelled from sight,
A mere eidolon. still and white,
Seemed ali of earth that fingered there!
While ever slowly. slowly. through
The cleaning air, as cobwebs do
That drift by day across the blue
In trailing tissues. white as snow.
And light as any feather. so
The mist curled upward. wreath on wreath;
And gently, somewhere underneath,
The river tinkled low.
| Half guessed against the starry sky,
A tlmy network lifted high
On shadowy piers, the bridge that spanned
With slender lines the viewless stream,
Hung lightly poised on either hand
II touched, on this side, fairyland,
| On that. some blessed dreami
| The vaporous moonbeams wrought such spell,
4 No. orff .,,I,t;
Transfgured. for little space
With hint of heaven well.
| Then suddenly from out that dense
White shroudIng cloud, ruddy star
| Flared upward family from afar,
| floating iambent neutrality-suspicious.
The nearing light streamed. more intense,
Till like a lovely living thing
| In somewise fashioned out of flame.
Amid the pale mist. Quivering.
| fishers fiambeau came!
| Ii 6ickered ftfully, wind-blown
| To radiant spires OF f1re that shone
And sparkled till the clinging haze
Diflused sheaf OF rainbow rays,
Like some great flashing opal stone
OF milky hue and heart ablaze;
Then drifting rd,-pallng soon,
| A niinbus glow,-a spark,-a gleam,
SO. ever faint and fainter grown.
1t vanished down the stream.
But waxed unto her highest noon,
| From out the zenith. silver sown
With little spangling stars that glanced
And frightened as the night advanced,
In rounded spendor still the moon
| Held all the world entranced.
| LAFAYETTE, Ind. -Evaleen Stein.
| Threads of Life
| I'm weaving my carpet OF rags to-day,
And watching the warp as 1t flies in fast,
| While my thoughts are broken like ends tina
| fray
| $50 Shuttle fly in.
| How first and last
The cOlors fing
| Thro' the webbing of life like rags and string!
| Tight in the loom is the warping of Fate,
All, ill in the dark woof certain to cleave,
| Gray with the years get lonely and late;
| Shuttle fly out.
| Joyfully weave
| Scarlet and gray,
| For youth when we sang with the birds at play
| Mingled with sorrow ana clear when the hear
/ siOves with passionate tenderness through
| Yellow. when jealousy tore love apart,
| itti Shuttle fly In.
Blue for the true
| Waited away,
| And black when We knelt by the beautiful clay
| Fill rags In the carpet with random rife.
Bright ones and dark ones knotted and tied,
| Typical checkers that vary i'll life,
Shuttle fly out
White for the bride,
| Black for the bier,
| Warped and woven as III life they appeared.
-rfa The independent.