Sometimes birds sing not though the morn is fair; Sometimes flowers folded lie beneath the sun; Sometimes no dew falls though the day is done; Sometimes where fruit should grow the branch is bare; Sometimes the truest poet must forbear To make his music, though the hour is one With perfect beauty ended and begun: Sometimes his power has left him to despair, Sometimes he standeth spelled and dumb, though all Is great around him, though he plainly sees The beauty, and the grand sound plainly hears. But if, ere glories vanish, it befall That his sweet tongue doth loosen; as it frees He thrills with rapture, hymning through his tears. WILLIAM FRANCIS BARNARD. THE LITTLE GREEN HAT. They were coming out of the matinee, and there was something in the way he took her arm and swung her out of the crush, that the experienced eye of the married man or married woman could at once detect as the assurance of the husband, accustomed to being adored, and quietly and covertly conscious of other feminine eyes in the crowd. He turned up her fur collar and they walked along in silence. She was scrutinizing each face in the slowly moving throng. He was picking his way, falling in her wake to give room to the opposing stream, and occasionally to glance behind and strengthen some impression of a silhouette, that awoke a momentary pang, and then faded into the blur of faces, the rustle of silks and the subtle perfume of a well dressed crowd of women. Once he turned half round sharply, as a tall, handsome woman swept by, creaking and rustling like a great galleon in a swell of wind and rolling sea. His wife brought back his eyes with a glance of interrogation. “Pretty little green hat, that,” he said. “I think it would just suit you.” “Ah yes,” answered she. “Strange you never notice hats in the milliners’ windows.” JONATHAN PENN. THE NEW GOD.