For years, an ever-shifting shade The sunshine of thy visage made; Then, spider-like, the captive caught In meshes of immortal thought. E’en so, with half-averted eye, Day after day I passed thee by, Till, suddenly, a subtler art Enshrined thee in my heart of heart. “Not even the infinite surfeit of Columbus literature of the last six months can deprive Fr. Tabb’s tribute in Lippincott’s of its sweetness and light,” says the _Review of Reviews_: With faith unshadowed by the night, Undazzled by the day, With hope that plumed thee for the flight And courage to assay, God sent thee from the crowded ark, Christ bearer, like the dove, To find, o’er sundering waters dark, New lands for conquering love. As a final selection, we may well conclude these brief notes on a poet with staying powers by quoting a poem, contributed to the _Cosmopolitan_, called “Silence;” a poem permeated with his fine spiritual sense: Temple of God, from all eternity Alone like Him without beginning found; Of time, and space, and solitude the bound, Yet in thyself of all communion free. Is, then, the temple holier than he That dwells therein? Must reverence surround With barriers the portal, lest a sound Profane it? Nay; behold a mystery! What was, remains; what is, has ever been: The lowliest the loftiest sustains. A silence, by no breath of utterance stirred— Virginity in motherhood—remains, Clear, midst a cloud of all-pervading sin, The voice of Love’s unutterable word. JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE. In this age of rondeaus and other feats in rhyme, it is pleasant to meet with a little book that abhors all verse tricks of the fin-de-siècle poets, and judiciously follows the old masters. Such a little book peeps at me from a corner in my library, marked in capitals, “Poems Worth Reading.” It was given to me years ago by its author, and as a remembrance, a few lines from the poem that appealed most to my intellect in those days, was written on its fly-leaf. It was its author’s first book, and was put forth with that shrinking modesty that has heralded all meritorious work. Of preface, that relic of egotism, there was none. It was dedicated to one who was close to his heart, to “JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY, My very dear friend, and an honorable gentleman.” It had O’Reilly’s warm word to speed and gain it a hearing, a word that would have remained unwritten were it not that the little volume, of its own worth, demanded that the word but expressed its merit. Since those days, it has travelled and found a ready home. Its gentle humor has made it quotable in the fashionable salons, its quaintness tickled the lonely scholar, stinging notes against wrong and its brilliant biting to the very core of silk-dressed sham, bespoke a hearty welcome in the haunts of the poor and oppressed.