M'

JOHN VANCE CHENEY.

R. CHENEY was born December 29, 1848, and what advantage consists in being born right he took at the start; seizing a double inheritance of emotional poetic faculty from his father, Simeon Pease Cheney, writer of the peculiar “Bird Music" in current numbers of the Century Magazine, and the instinct of common sense with a tendency to meditation from his mother. The blood is composite in the three antecedent generations, gathering Yankee, German, Swiss, Scotch, English and a Celtic strain. It is well enough to add, anthropometry having somewhat to do with a man's intellectual accomplishment, that Mr. Cheney's measurements are ample and, despite severe working habits and in former years bad health, he is still a formidable blending of rubber and steel. His mother's sister Miss Janet Vance, took an early interest in the boy, and, being a woman of exceptional and in many respects extraordinary powers, her influence was wise and stimulative, resembling the nurturing Emerson received from his gifted aunt. The lad's environment was not less fortunate than his ancestry. The landscapes of the Genesee Valley, New York, are justly celebrated for their fine, quiet beauty, and in one of the most reposeful of them still endures the old Vance homestead, to-day a family possession. Amid these "moreland greens" and the Dorset (Vermont) hills, whither the family returned soon after the child's birth, he was reared, obtaining his earliest tuition at the district school, and his farther education at Burr and Burton Seminary in Manchester, Vt., and at Temple Hill Academy, Geneseo, N. Y., graduating, valedictorian, at the age of seventeen. Of that institution he was soon chosen assistant principal. His teaching at an end, he had not the money to go to college, and, choosing the alternative of a lawoffice, he entered one at Woodstock, Vt., where he remained three years, and followed them with another year's legal instruction in Haverhill, Mass., when he was admitted to the bar of Massachusetts. He then went to the city of New York, and, after a term of preparation, was also admitted to the bar of New York. He forthwith began practice in that city. In a solitary way he had been singing at his work during these years; and it was probably quite as much this passion as any professional ambition that directed his steps to the great city. At this time Dr. J. G. Holland, who was conducting Scribner's Magazine, saw some of the young man's verses, was pleased with them and encouraged him to publish a few short poems in that periodical. This, as Mr. Cheney expresses it, was the commencement of his literary life. Ill health now forced him to the Pacific Coast, where he has since lived, the practice

of his profession never having been resumed. His published work, exclusive of magazine writing, consists of three volumes. "The Old Doctor" (1881); "Thistle-Drift" (1887); "Wood Blooms" (1888). Excepting a few essays, "The Old Doctor" is the only prose Mr. Cheney has written. Indeed, prose is a form of expression which he has deferred to later days; but his papers on Hawthorne, Browning, Arnold, Beethoven and poetry and music in general are preferred by many of his friends. He holds the true touchstones by which to recognize quality, and his essays are always characterized by candor, achromatic seeing and discriminative appreciation. His severe standards and firm tenets are carried over temperamentally into his poetry;— an art which he regards with a seriousness, approaching reverence, knowing its laws of which there is no wilful infraction in either of his two volumes.

While Mr. Cheney is without the exaggeration of idiosyncrasy and the complete self-submission which are characteristics of genius, he possesses other of its marks as surprise and spontaneity. His verses are not of the kind to be had for the trouble of going after them. They are far enough from the flippant classification, for instance, of "a cameo." Cameos are whittled out. Mr. Cheney's stanzas come.

He is an industrious man, faithful by day at his librarian's desk in the Free Library of San Francisco, and at night in his own study or perhaps assisting with his delightful improvisations the musical evenings occasionally given by his wife. He was married in 1876, to Miss Perkins, handsome and brilliant, just returned from six years in Europe, a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Stuttgart. His estimate of her taste is such that he never publishes lines from which her approval is withheld. C. J. W.

WHAT THE MUSE IS LIKE. LIKE the love-bringing wind when it goes To the deep-crimson heart of the rose, Like the beauty that, languishing, lies In the arms of the day when he dies, Like mist at the morning's feet, Distant music, transcendently sweet, Like these is the muse, but warier far, And hers the uncertainest lovers that are.

It laugh or sigh low in the summer's ear,
The jewel dew-bells of the mead ring clear
When morning's nearing in the sweet June
weather,

The flocked hours winging, feather unto feather,
The last leaf wail at waning of the year.
Methinks, from these we catch a passing song,
(The best of verities, perhaps, but seem)
Hearing, forsooth, shy Nature, on her round,
When least she imagines it: birds, wood, and

stream

Not only, but her silences profound, Surprised by softer footfall of our dream.

THE STRONG.

DOST deem him weak who owns his strength is tried?

Nay, we may safest lean on him that grieves: The pine has immemorially sighed,'

The enduring poplars are the trembling leaves.

To feel, and bow the head, is not to fear,

To cheat with jest-that is the coward's art. Beware the laugh that battles back the tear, He's false to all that's traitor to his heart.

He of great deeds does grope amid the throng Like him whose steps toward Dagon's temple

bore;

There's ever something sad about the strongA look, a moan, like that on ocean's shore.

THE BLACK DAWN.

THERE was crying by night, and the winds were loud,

Worn women were working a burial shroud: "She is gone," they said; "ay," they said, "she is gone!"

And the night winds moaned, and the hours went

on.

But the morrow dawned clear, and the world

shone bright,

No trace was there left of the dreadful night: "Nay!" cried the lover, "the sun is long gone! How the night winds sigh! Do the hours move on?"

THE SKILFUL LISTENER.

THE skilful listener, methinks, may hear
The grass blades clash in sunny field together,
The roses kissing, and the lily, whether

WHITHER?

WHITHER leads this pathway, little one?— Good sir, I think it runs just on and on.

Whither leads this pathway, maiden fair?— That path to town, sir; to the village square.

Whither leads this pathway, father old?— Where but to yonder marbles white and cold!

THE WAY OF LIFE.

THE warrior frowned and pressed his temples gray;

"Enough," he cried, "away with love-away!" A boy from play by fondest kiss beguiled, "Mother, I'll love thee ever!" spake the child. A maiden gazed into the night sky wide, "OI will love him when he comes!" she sighed. The three moved on along the way of life: A fair face lured the soldier from his strife, Upon a tomb was carved the sweet child's name, The lover to the maiden never came.

HE THAT HEARS THE VOICE.
THRICE blest is he that hears the voice
Above belittling strife-

The rolling psalm as they rejoice,
Th' exultant Sons of Life.

He does not doubt; he seeth clear,
And walketh in his trust:
With neither faltering nor fear,
He meeteth what he must.

To him sorrow is sweet as mirth,
And toil is one with rest;
The death groan is the cry at birth,
The grave the mother breast.

Through veil of darkness wasted thin,
To him the vision comes:

He sees them that pass out and in
The high, immortal homes.

GREAT IS TO-DAY.

OUT on a world that's gone to weed!

The great tall corn is still strong in his seed; Plant her breast with laughter, put song in your toil,

The heart is still young in the mother soil: There's sunshine and bird-song, and red and

white clover,

And love lives yet, world under and over.

The light's white as ever, sow and believe; Clearer dew did not glisten round Adam and Eve, Never bluer heavens nor greener sod

Since the round world roiled from the hand of

God:

There's a sun to go down, to come up again, There are new moons to fill when the old moons

wane.

Is wisdom dead since Plato's no more,
Who'll that babe be, in yon cottage door?
While your Shakespeare, your Milton, takes his
place in the tomb

His brother is stirring in the good mother-womb:
There's glancing of daisies and running of brooks,
Ay, life enough left to write in the books.

The world's not all wisdom, nor poems, nor flowers,

But each day has the same good twenty-four hours,

The same light, the same night. For your Jacobs,

no tears;

They see the Rachels at the end of the years: There's waving of wheat, and the tall strong

corn,

And his heart blood is water that sitteth forlorn.

THE OLD FARM BARN.

THE maples look down with bright eyes in their leaves,

The clear drops drip from the swallow-built eaves, The chickens find shelter, the cisterns fill;

There's a busier whirr from the wheels of the

mill,

The pond is all dimples from shore to shore, And the miller smiles back from his place in the door;

Slow mists from the mountains come drifting down,

The houses show fainter afar in the town,
The gust sweeps up, dies away again,
Then, loud and fast, the rap-tap of the rain;
For all yonder sun 'tis my heart's rainy day
In the old farm barn, with the children at play.

The oxen chew slowly, with sleepy eyes,
The huddling sheep shrink to half their size,
The dazed calves stare at the dingy wall,
Old Nancy looks soberly out from her stall,
Tiger Puss crouches close to the mouse's hole,
Cæsar knaws boldly a bone that he stole-

Over all, the roof and the dance of the rain.
Not a sorrowing thought, not a touch of pain;
The old farm barn is so dusk and still
The spiders sleep on the window sill:
'Tis the hush, the drowse of the rainy day,
And I'm leaping again from the beam to the hay.

Up, chunky George of the woodchuck race!
Hist, withy Ben, with the chipmunk face!
This way, broad Bill, with the trousers wide!
Come, stumbling Tom, with the big toe tied!-
The scramble is made up the shaky stairs,
Hatless and breathless, we stand in pairs;
Bawling Bob gives the word, and down we go
From the cobwebbed beam to the bay below.
The sport is forbidden, hence double the zest;
More risks than the damage to breeches or vest:
Aha! he's no coward gets sprout, to-day,
For bliss of the leap from the beam to the hay!

Oh, the way of the world, its worry and strife-
The wrestle, the battle, that men call "life"!
On us all, at times, may the noon sun shine,
It may warm to your heart, may warm to mine,
But the joy long gone, though never so small,
Compared with joys present, is worth them all.
The future we know not, but safe is the past,
And the first we loved we love to the last;
The dearer gifts, the longer we live,
Are the quiet joys our memories give:

Ay, back, my heart, to the rainy day-
To the old farm barn and the children at play.

MODERN PROGRESS.

A FEW TECHES ON'T, BY AN OLD FOGY. WE'RE livin', now, in most trimendious times, Too wondersome for plain straight-furrid rhymes, But, I confess, my poor old fogy brain

It would jest like to ketch a glimpse, again,

Of some things they have whisked clean out of ken,

Upsettin' Natur' and my feller men.

The good old world, I s'pose, is still a ball,
And keeps a-rollin'; 'pon my word, that's all
Remains o''t nat'ral. Once upon a time
'Twas suthin' of a trip from clime to clime;
But any ninny, now, can stand right here
And holler business in a Hindoo's ear.
With ingines, snapagraphs and howlephones
A-muddlin' up the very poles and zones!
Good Lord, is this still Adam's fallen race
So cool annihilatin' time and space,
A-drivin' of the coursers o' the air

As sainted granther did his sorrel mare!
But I would let old mother Natur' go

If they would leave the folks I used to know.
Why, them nussed at the breast of my nativ'

lan',

Half on 'em talks sost I can't understan';
While them fresh critters from a furrin shore,
They'd scared the geese at our old homestead
door.

Now take, for inst', them rattin' almond-eyed-
I thought that sich lived clean on t' other side:
Bless ye, there ain't no t' other side, to-day,
Jess like's not Boston's sot on Bottany Bay.
The times is thunderin' wonderful, I know-
This ere a mixin' up creation so;

But, by my bones! I'd like once more t' enjoy
Them blessin's I was riz to from a boy.
I'd like the reg'lar old religeon back,
Which said we jest must walk the narrer track,
And there an end on't: now, where we're to go
(Maybe some folks are smarter) I don' know.
My Bible might as well be on the shelf;
They've found the world jest up and made itself,
And Christians, even, have fixed the Good Book

over

Until there's leetle left on't but the cover.
No, faith, I'll keep the track my fathers trod,
For all their Sheols and their Nothin'-God.
Great times, it seems, is made of rush and doubt,
But where the great comes in, I hain't found out.
If Natur's done for and religeon, too,

Pray leave me suthin a-ruther 't won't slump

thro'!

Leave, say, a man will find spare time to sit
Him down in his right mind, and chat a bit;
A plain, old-fashioned, homespun, mortal man,
Who allers takes it easy when he can.
Leave me a woman tendin' her own child,
A-lookin' liked they used to when they smiled,
Not makin' on it; leave a good cart-load

Of children which is children till they're growed; Give me some gals, once more, can mind a kitchen,

And tend to suthin' else besides bewitchin';
Some wimmen-folks whose art ain't quite so high
They're clamberin' up, a frescoin' the sky;
Leave boys not all base-ball, or else afloat
In tooth-pick of a college racin'-boat-
Some square-backed boys with heads on, not
them cranes

From York, with a teaspoonful of bran for brains;

Leave me a story-book, 'for I begin it

I know for sure that there's a story in it,

And let me get at least a quarter through one