SOME SWEET DAY.

I.

In every life some rain must beat;
In every life some sunshine is;
Some early find their share of sweet;
Some, longing, wait their bliss.
Then, sweet, forget our wasted years,
And mourn no more our vanished May;

Be patient till our joy appears,

Our turn will come some day.

Some day all our birds shall sing,

Some day all our joy-bells ring,

Some day bloom our promised spring,
Some day-some sweet day.

II.

Oh, vain are sighs for sorrows past,
And vain are fears for future ill,
While plighted troth holds sure and fast,
And love is faithful still.

Then envy not the happy hearts

Whose crowns of bliss do not delay;

The joy late coming late departs,

And ours will longer stay.

Some day all our grain shall grow,

Some day all our roses blow,

Some day, sweet, our souls shall glow;
Some day-some sweet day.

III.

The flower of summer's sun and rain

Is sure to droop in summer's glow; The year's best gift of golden grain Lies green beneath the snow.

Then doubt no more our lives shall bloom,
For sorrow cannot always stay;

And for the happy time to come
'T will be our turn some day..

Some day Love shall claim his own,
Some day Right ascend his throne,
Some day hidden Truth be known;
Some day-some sweet day.

Many

Half sad in its tender soberness, as much of Mr. Bates' verse seems to be, his is by no means a sad nature. He is brimming over with humor, and oftentimes keenly witty. The comic side of life strikes him with all its comicality. Those who remember his poem on "December," published in all the papers a matter of fifteen years ago a poem whose humor was broad in the extreme-would hardly believe the same hand penned "Under the Ice," unless they realized how near the surface of laughter flows ever an undertone of tears. of his pointed witticisms sparkle forth brilliantly in The Post, and he wastes a wealth of bon mots in every-day conversation. All poets may not be possessed of warm geniality, but those of our acquaintance offer no exception to what we would fain believe a general rule; and, in the main, those whose productions seem saddest, in the tenderest minor key, are those whose geniality is most warm and contagious, who appear overflowing with happy fancies and real light-heartedness.

In person Mr. Bates is somewhat slight, of about medium height, with bright, laughing eyes looking out

from under a broad forehead, nearly naked of "thatch." He is of an intensely active, nervous organization, as might be inferred from the sketch of his life, and has crowded more varied experience and hard work into forty years than many men can boast of. He writes rapidiy— has written much in the way of sketches and stories, as well as poetry; and his prose has a pithy directness well fitted for journalistic effect. He has conquered success as a political writer; but it is as the poet that we like best to regard him, and especially as the poet of Hope. And as such we cannot more fitly take leave of him than by quoting this hopeful poem :

OUR BETTER DAY.

Still sore with struggle, faint and worn,

We wait the better day,

The breath of whose celestial morn

Shall charm our pain away;

Our night seems long, and dark with wrong,
And evil life's whole sum;

But God's time is our promised time,
And that is sure to come.

O! soul that struggles and that cries,
Sore tempted to despair,

And reads no answer in the skies

To labor or to prayer:
Though night is old, and dark, and cold,
And doubting lips are dumb,

Yet God's day is your triumph day,

And that is sure to come.

O! day long looked for, oft foretold,
Best theme of prayer and song,

When Truth and Right shall judgment hold,
In triumph over Wrong!

Young lives wear out 'twixt hope and doubt,
Young hearts grow cold and numb;
But God's day is our promised day,
And that is sure to come.

How many times, 'mid icy chills,

We've dreamed of summer blooms,

And woke to snow on wintry hills,
And frost on early tombs;

Our birds of song are silent long,

The leafless groves are dumb; But God's time is our summer time, And that is sure to come.

We waited-not with folded hands-
To gather fortune's grain;

With patient toil we plowed our lands,
And scattered seed like rain;

The year goes wrong, and tares grow strong,
Hope starves without a crumb;

But God's time is our harvest time.

And that is sure to come.

BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.

ECTURE audiences, in many sections of the Middle and Western States, know well a form of medium height, rather heavier than the average, surmounted by a large head set squarely on broad shoulders, the head lightly covered with iron-gray hair, thrown back from a forehead massive and intellectual, and crowning a face somewhat florid, smoothly-shaven, happy in its smile when the smile comes, strongly pronounced in its character, and the tell-tale of perhaps fifty years since a mother first looked into it and knew her first-born. Lecture audiences have often seen this form walking half-timidly forward to the speaker's desk,—halftimidly, as though afraid to meet the gaze of hundreds; half-hurriedly, as though in haste to be over with a dreaded duty-have often listened to the rare poetry of prose to which the form gave utterance, in speech quick and impetuous as the fancy it syllabled, and have often gone home wondering how a man could crowd so much of quaint conceit, of beautiful simile, of brilliant imagination, of pleasant humor, of tender sentiment and fine word painting, into an hour's discourse. The name of this form is Benjamin F. Taylor.