There was a day when death to me meant tears, And tearful takings-leave that had to be, And awed embarkings on an unshored sea, And sudden disarrangement of the years. But now I know that nothing interferes With the fixed forces when a tired man dies; That death is only answerings and replies, The chiming of a bell which no one hears, The casual slanting of a half-spent sun, The soft recessional of noise and coil, The coveted something time nor age can spoil; I know it is a fabric finely spun Between the stars and dark; to seize and keep, Such glad romances as we read in sleep. _Boston Transcript_ _Mahlon Leonard Fisher_ EVENING Go, little sorrows! From the evening wood Faint odors rise, that touch the heart like tears With inarticulate comfort. Lo, she bears A weary load--small cares that drug the blood, Small envies, sick desires for lesser good,-- All day, till now the evening re-appears, They drop away, and she with wonder rears Her aching height from needless servitude. The tree-tops are all music; light and soft The brook’s small feet go tinkling toward the sea Bearing the little day’s distress afar; While yonder, in the stillness set aloft, My one great Grief, still glimmering down on me, Smiles tremulous as a bereavèd Star. _Yale Review_ _Charlotte Wilson_ LIGHTS THROUGH THE MIST Some for the sadness and sweetness of far evening bells, Seeming to call a tryst, Yet, for my choice, all the comfort and kindness that wells From lights through the mist. In the dim dusk so unreal that it seems like a dream Hard for the heart to resist, Mellowing the pain of the close-drawing darkness, they stream, Lights through the mist. Blurred to new beauty, the blues and the browns and the grays Shimmer with soft amethyst; Then God’s own glory of gold as it shines through the haze, Lights through the mist! _Century_ _William Rose Benét_ THE TWELVE-FORTY-FIVE (FOR EDWARD J. WHEELER)