Yet not because, when dangers dimmed her skies,
And clouds that gathered over seas drew low,
"Twas thou didst draw thy sword and fight for her,
The while thou sufferedst all things for her sake;—
Ten thousand others suffered at thy side,
And fought, and died, and are forgotten now.
'Tis not for battles fought she loves thee, nor
Because, in time of peace, thou mad'st wise laws
While guiding her along her toilsome path;
For other hands than thine have led her on,
And other minds than thine her laws conceived,
Yea, greater laws than ever thou didst frame.
'Tis not as soldier or as statesman that

She honors thee. Thy epitaph be not

That thou wert ever first in peace and war,

But rather this: Thou lov'dst much and wert strong.
Thy love it was, longsuffering and kind,

Bereft of vanity or hope of gain,

That battling 'gainst such odds as never were,
O'ercame resistance, loosed thy country's bonds,
And set her free. Thy strength it was

That saved her from herself, when greatly torn
By jealousies and doubts; thy strength that made
From thirteen petty states one glorious whole.

Full six score years have passed, whose lingering touch
Has left the wall a bulwark vast, and drawn
New faces numberless. Amid them all
Thy clear-cut profile, O great Washington,
Stands out against a background greater now
Than once, but yet still dim and indistinct.
O God, whose mighty hand the nations holds,
Grant us to-day to love our country more,
To love self less, to walk in spirit ever more
And more with him who loved much and was strong.
SYBIL LAVINIA COX.

A SONG TO SMITH

Hail to thee, Mother! Our grateful love rises
To answer the love and the care we have known;
Proudly we hold from the past in our keeping
A name and an honor as dear as our own.

Patiently, kindly, thou clearedst our dull vision,
Till wakened our sight to the glory of earth.
Something we grasp of life's measureless wonder,
Something we feel of its infinite worth.

Clear in that glory shall rise the world vision

Of kinship and service, as self falls away.
Gladly we enter the dust of the courses

Whose prize shall be neither the gold nor the bay.

Ever thy touch shall be felt on our shoulder,

While hearts that the years can not alter shall raise

Prayer that God send thee a future full-handed,

And crown with His blessing long length of rich days.

AGNES HUNT.

PAOLO AND FRANCESCA*

One might think that the possibilities of the genuine chivalrous romance of the Middle Ages had been long since exhausted in poem and story. Amid the prosaic, rapid mechanism of modern times, one does not look to find the man of genius, with all the complexity of cosmopolitan life from which to draw, turn back to the well-worn age of chivalry for his material. We imagine we have outgrown the tale of knights and armor, and courts and ladies. But if given to us in spirit and in truth, these things will always appeal to the romantic sense which is now so much obscured in this workaday world. After all, brave deeds and courtly language can never be unworthy of our attention, even though they be dressed in well-worn plots. One who, wearied with a round of commonplace duties, takes up "Paolo and Francesca" for the first time, reads it through at a bound, breathlessly absorbed from the title page to the end, and spell-bound with interest. In the first rush of commendation, he thinks only of the total effect-what beauty, what poetry, what a perception of character, what new breath and fire in ancient form! Indeed, what sublime mastery in the whole conception! Another reading, in the quieter and surer light of unimpassioned criticism, shows that the results are unusually analyzable.

* Paolo and Francesca, A Tragedy in Four Acts, by Stephen Phillips.

First, a word concerning the plot itself. The material is old, borrowed from Dante or Boccaccio or both. The bare outline, the actual story of Paolo and Francesca, was ready-made to the author's hand. That he saw its possibilities bespeaks immediately the master mind. But this is premature. All the traditional accessories of the drama are here, the underplottings and the contrasts that are found in every tragedy that can be properly so called. The druggist's shop and the potions are the traditional resort for ill-fated heroes and heroines. The little underplot of the druggist's daughter and her life, of Nita and her Bernardo (Nita's haste to get to him causes her unwittingly to urge her lady to her doom), of Paolo's roistering friends, of the soldiers and the peasant girls outside Rimini,-all are vitally connected with the main plot, but are used in such a way as to relieve the stress or increase the suspense of the situation, in the time-honored fashion.

A new element, or at least an element not so old as the others, is the introduction of Lucrezia as the motor force. This is of great significance. As if to remove some of the blame from the shoulders of the principals, Lucrezia is made the instigator of all Giovanni's action, and for her part she is partially excused by the clever use of personal motive other than the wornout one of revenge. The long speech during her first scene explains it all. She is bitter-bitter because her life's most passionate dream, that of tender care for little children, is unfulfilled. To me this Lucrezia is a most pathetic character. That which she most dearly prizes and which belongs to her by birthright, has never been hers, and she is embittered. This, coupled with some natural jealousy that she should be superseded in the affections of her kinsman, causes her willingness to inflict pain; and she puts the first bitter drop in Giovanni's cup, which, spreading, soon permeates the whole. She is redeemed in our estimation by her subsequent repentance and tenderness over Francesca when, in the time of trouble, the younger woman touches her "where her life is quivering most," by appealing as a little child to her protection. This again urges Lucrezia to action, but her impulse now is to restrain Giovanni, not to impel him on. This balancing of good and evil in Lucrezia for the precipitation of action is a powerful factor in the play, ingenious in its conception and effective in execution.

The supreme art in this drama lies, however, not in the plot or any workings of the plot, but in its management. In the method of this work lies its power. Here we come upon Mr. Stephen Phillips's genius in all its force. Throughout the whole,-in plan, characters, poetry, everything, there shines a colossal simplicity. It is one of the finest illustrations in modern literature of the high art of simplicity. This quality acts as an interpreter. We appreciate the cleverness of the method. by means of it. It eliminates impediment in the way of perfect understanding of "how it is done." It gives us an appreciation of the brilliant, dashing alternation of long, lingering sweeps with bold, suggestive strokes, that characterizes the impressionist picture before us; as in the swift transition from lingering dialogue like that in the last scene between Paolo and Francesca, where Paolo in long, poetic rhapsodies fills the atmosphere with the thought of love to eternity, to the next scene where Lucrezia enters hurriedly and interrogates the frightened Nita with sharp, energetic questions that convey her suspense and excitement. These rapidly executed contrasts, of which the play is full, are telling in the extreme, lending to the whole a zest that could be achieved in no other way. The scene in the druggist's shop is so instinct with life and passion that it is hard to realize that one but reads it in a book and does not see it enacted before his eyes.

With most writers, the dangers of this bold method might outweigh its value; for there is the possibility of making changes of action so sudden that they become bald and bare and might even verge on the ridiculous. Again, such swift dealing with men's deepest passions might prove uncouth and extreme. But we find here nothing uncouth and nothing bald or bare. What then is the explanation of this phenomenon? Mr. Phillips has furnished himself with an excellent provision against these faults. At every important turning-point, the change, though strong and bold, is not unpleasantly sudden, for we have every time been warned somewhere before of the approaching event. This principle of preparation for all of the most important action effectually counteracts a possibility of tendency toward abruptness. The first of these touches of premonition is in Giovanni's speech of welcome to Francesca:

"This child

Shall lead me gently down the slant of life.

Here then I sheathe my sword; and fierce must be
That quarrel where again I use the steel."

That this happy termination of affairs is to be impossible we already foresee. Again there is a slight touch of premonitory warning when, speaking of Lucrezia, Giovanni says:

"She has often cooled a rashness

Which I inherit."

He inherits his rashness! A still more marked foreshadowing of trouble comes a little later when he says:

"Though I sheathe my sword, I am not tamed.

What I have snared, in that I set my teeth

And lose with agony."

Later Francesca's innocent longing for "sorrows of her own" is pathetic in its foreboding; and Giovanni, as if unwittingly scenting trouble in the air, says fiercely of his love for Paolo:

"Any that came between us I would kill."

Another exquisite touch is at the point where Francesca first feels something strange in Paolo's conduct. Her delicate organization is sensible to the approach of sorrow.

"And yet, Nita, and yet-can any tell

How sorrow first doth come? Is there a step,

A light step, or a dreamy drip of oars?

Is there a stirring of leaves, or ruffle of wings?

For it seems to me that, softly, without hand,
Surely she touches me."

Soon after, as if to add force to her feeling of sorrow, these words of Giovanni are unintentionally significant in their irony of the real state of affairs:

"What little grief perplexes you, my child?"

The choice of the word "perplex" in this connection is masterly. We can not explain it, we can only feel its keen appreciation of life. Another gentle foreshadowing of what is to come is in Francesca's choice of metaphor when she is alone with Nita in the garden. Soon Paolo is to enter and the vision of Angela be fulfilled. In her troubled, nervous restlessness, she says to her maid:

"Now

Day in a breathless passion kisses night

And neither speaks."

Francesca seems to be oftenest singled out as the messenger of these suggestions, perhaps because her delicate, untrained