Dear wert thou Marion, Marion Moore,
Dear as the tide in my broken heart throbbing;
Dear as the soul o'er thy memory sobbing;
Sorrow my life of its roses is robbing;

Wasting is all the glad beauty of yore.

I will remember thee, Marion Moore;

I will remember, alas! to regret thee;

I will regret when all others forget thee;
Deep in my breast will the hour that I met thee
Linger and burn till life's fever is o'er.

Gone, art thou, Marion, Marion Moore'

Gone, like the breeze o'er the billow that bloweth ;
Gone, like the rill to the ocean that floweth ;
Gone, as the day from the gray mountain goeth,
Darkness behind thee, but glory before '

Peace to thee, Marion, Marion Moore !

Peace which the queens of the earth can not borrow;
Peace from a kingdom that crowned thee with sorrow;
O! to be happy with thee on the morrow,

Who would not fly from this desolate shore?

In all the ballad literature of our language there is no purer sentiment than is embodied in these five stanzas, nowhere is pure sentiment more admirably expressed. We never sing the fourth stanza but the beauty of that last simile impresses us anew.

Gone, as the day from the gray mountain goeth,
Darkness behind thee, but glory before!"

Could there be anything more completely expressive?
One can rarely find as perfect a gem as this.
And very

seldom will you chance upon a tenderer little ballad than this of

SWEET RUTH.

The summer will soon be here, sweet Ruth,
For the birds of brighter bowers

Are singing their way from the balmy South
To the land of opening flowers;

But the summer will fade, and the flowers will die,
And the birds, from bank and plain,

Go mourning back to a warmer sky
While I wait for thee in vain.

O! many a heart and many a hand
I have prized in pain and bliss,

Have found that rest in a better land

Which they never knew in this;

And of all the forms that fled with thee,

From a kingdom fraught with tears,
There are none that seem like thine to me
Through the golden mist of years.

But I never have wished thee back, sweet Ruth,
In the years that since have rolled,
And I guard the memory of thy truth
As a miser would his gold.

The loneliest glens of my being know

How the birds of peace may sing,

And the darkest waves have caught the glow
From a guardian angel's wing.

While Mr. Clark was director of "Ossian's Bards," the bass singer of the troupe-Mr. Albert G. Tanner, of Jordan, a very excellent and gifted young man,

sickened with fever, and died. It was in his memory that "November" was written, one of Mr. Clark's best. pieces. We would much like to copy it in full, but will give only the closing stanzas:

I hear the muffled tramp of years

Come stealing up the slope of Time;
They bear a train of smiles and tears,

Of burning hopes and dreams sublime;
But future years may never fling

A treasure from their passing hours,
Like those that come on sleepless wing,
From memory's golden plain of flowers.

The morning breeze of long-ago

Sweeps o'er my brain with soft control,
Fanning the embers to a glow,

Amidst the ashes round my soul;

And by the dim and flickering light,

I see thy beauteous form appear,

Like one returned from wandering bright,
To bless my lonely moments here.

Tanner's death necessitated a re-organization of the troupe, and while looking for a man to fill the vacancy, Mr. Clark took the field alone, and began giving ballad concerts. Since that time he has constantly sung He has alone, as a matter both of profit and choice. been highly successful. That he has been able to sustain himself so many years, unassisted by other talent, is ample testimony as to the character of his entertainments. Possessing a voice of peculiar sweetness, and

having that final accomplishment of the good balladist, a perfect enunciation, to listen to him of an evening is genuine pleasure unalloyed.

One secret of his success in the concert-room lies in the fact that his songs are not common-place rhyme, or wretched doggerel. In selecting a song for public rendering, his first consideration is sentiment that he believes in; the next, poetic expression that he can approve of. Other considerations are secondary to these. As a result, his singing has an influence uplifting and ennobling; and we can heartily endorse the expression of the Rev. Dr. Cuyler, in wishing there were 'ten thousand such men singing truths into the hearts of the people."

66

Of late years Mr. Clark has written little verse-not the half that should have come from his pen. Early in the war he gave us the best lyric called forth by that sad time, unless we except Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn," and it seemed a pity that he should not write more lyrics. True, he did pen one or two others, when war had ceased, and they went the rounds of the press. One of these, and the longest, is entitled "The Boatman's Dream," and blends the descriptive and the imaginative in an unusual degree. To illustrate how largely his talent partakes of the former element, we quote the first two stanzas, which are rarely equalled:

With long arms o'er the prairies tossed,

And feet that bathed in tropic spray,

1:

And head all white with Northern frost,
The mighty Sire of Waters lay;
His fingers gleamed with priceless mines,
Or watered herds along the plains,
And lowly grass and lofty pines

Drew life and grandeur from his veins.

The Junc winds left their mountain towers,
Which guard the Valleys of the West,
With odors from a million flowers,

To soothe the sleeping giant's rest;

They danced along his pulsing form,

With many a quaint and charming grace,
And threw their kisses, sweet and warm,

In dimples on his weary face.

In its way,

The poem which, of all he has written, Mr. Clark considers best, we reproduce, entire, below. it has few, if any, equals, and is certainly unsurpassed. It was written during ten days of watching by the bedside of that mother to whom he has paid such loving tribute in the Waif of this article-watching that ended only with the mother's death-written, as Mr. Clark once assured us, when the pressure to write was irresistible, when he could not help writing.

LEONA.

Leona, the hour draws nigh,

The hour we've awaited so long,

For the angel to open a door through the sky,
That my spirit may break from its prison and try
Its voice in an infinite song.