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A SONNET.
What li sonnet? 'Til the pole, loft light
That trembles on the brow of early dawn;
The mellow luniet glow when day U gone;
The lilver star within the purple night ;
An April shower; a lily, chaste and white.
A sonnet ? 'Tit the faint, elusive flush
Within a snow geranium's heart; the blush
Across a maiden's throat; the tranced delight
A poet knows; a gush of wild-bird song;
The opal's soul with passionate fires rife;
The thought ah, me! that brings back other times;
The rushing ol the sea, sibilant, strong.
A sonnet ? why, It is a rounded life,
Whose every deed is set to love's own rhymes.
She walked along a narrow path, smooth and fair, but not bordered with
(lowers, nor sweet with wild bird notes. By her side one walked always, with
firm, even steps and head erect his grave, stern eyes looked straight before
him, never faltering. There were deep lines about his brow and about his
pale lips ( and his shoulders stooped, as though, perhaps, an invisible burden
were lying upon them i but he never paused to rest, nor did he ever swerve
from that narrow path. She whom he led was young and full of hope and
youth's own peach. She started out bravely in the early morning, laying her
hand in his, amTsmiling as they kept step together. The sweetness of spring
was in the air, although the (lowers and the birds had not yet come, and her
pulses beat full and strong with the gladness of living ; there was a quiet joy,
too, in the mere companionship of the one who walked with her. But by and
by, her feet lagged a little, and it once occurred to her tliat this was a strange
path in which no (lowers grew, She looked at her stern companion, sighing,
and with troubled eyes. Could it be that he did not miss them? And after
a while they came to a place where another way branched off, and glancing
down its cool avenue of trees, she saw beautiful flowers i and she heard soft
melody of bird notes. Then her little heart beat fast and her light feet
twinkled with joy i she flung loose the gold waves of her hair, and she cried :
"Ah, let us go down this way I It is so much sweeter. And but see I the
flowers I" But he who walked with her only grasped her hand more closely,
and hurried on, answering ; "This way is not so fair, perhaps, but it is safer
safer." And he looked so sad and so careworn that she went with him for
pity's sake, although her wistful eyes turned back to the other path. Then,
some one came, very softly, and walked on the other side of her so softly
that at first she did not know thai he was there. Only the sky flushed of a
sudden to gold, and violets lifted sweet, wet eyes to be trampled blind by her
feet i little brooks chattered over pebbly places, and the mellow air trembled
with bird-wings and bird-music. And she ah, of a sudden, too, she grew
radiant with beauty. Her bare arms and innocent bosom were faintly pink
as the rose cloud nestling in the dimple of a purple hill, and her uncurled lips
were like the innermost, crimson heart of a seashell that has held the kisses of
many a sun i and her eyes they were like sunlight on blue pansies, like stars
in a blue sea and no air wherein wild roses open could be more sweet than
her breath. And there came swelling up from her heart a song that broke
from her lips sweeter than bird notes i it seemed to her that she had never
sung before. And when she turned, she saw him who walked beside her, and
she grew strangely still He looked into her eyes and said, very low ; " I am
Love." Then said he of the stern brow, who walked at her right : " I am
named Duty. You cannot walk with one without neglecting the other.
Choose between us." And love said, pleading also with ha eyes: "Come
with me. Where I walk are flowers, and (luting song notes. I will lead you
down sunlit ways, where only south winds come. I will be all in all to you."
Then spake Duty ; " Flowers wither soon, and birds are dumb when winter
comes clouds darken across the sun, and winds come out of the north. Then
Love grows petulant, and wearies but I (rust me. I will never fail My
shoulders are bent because I bear half the burden myself, and I suffer, too,
for those who walk with me. But Love thrives only among rose leaves and
sunlight, dreamy music and birds 1 1 cannot bear cold and cruel winds, nor
shield you from litem i it could not lead you through thorns and up steep
places, but wouM go seeking lowlier climes, leaving you to bear the hurts
and the heart aches alone. But I Vill be true to you. Come, and on the
THE ILLUSTRATED WEST SHORE.
las, day of your life, you will be glad that you chose me. So she turned
away from Love, grieving; and the flowers faded by the ways.de, and tie
birds were dumb , the sky was no longer blue, and there was no g adness
the voices of the brooks ; the sunlight waned, and lo I she walked always m a
kind of gray twilight, looking before her with dull, hopeless eyes, and dragging
her weary feet along side by side with Duty. So walked she, never faltering,
never swerving, until one day Duty laid her hand, old and trembling now, m
the hand of death. But for one moment she turned from him, and with dim
eyes that seemed to be looking far back into the past, she murmured-as
though to some one far away: "Kind God, let me go down this path a
moment-but a moment. For see, dear God-the flowers! and hear the
birds-and some one calls me." Then, remembering, she turned, with a
sigh, and laid her old heart-worn out in passionate beating against its prison
bars of clay on the kind heart of death.
There is nothing that can be said in favor of vivisection that can make
of it anything but the most barbarous and outrageous cruelty, and of those
who practice it, monsters without feeling. Let those physicians and surgeons
who talk so eloquently and so beautifully about sacrificing their own feelings,
and bearing, without complaint, their own mental sufferings as they witness
the horrible torture of the dumb thing their knife is probing, all for the " love
and the future welfare of humanity "-let them, I say, submit their bodies to
the butchery of other noble vivisectionists, and there will be a sacrifice worth
something. One can suffer deeply through "the feelings," it is true! but
such suffering pales into insignificance before the agony of a dumb brute on
the operating table. If vivisection is necessary to the welfare of humanity,
then let humanity suffer ; humanity can obtain opiates to relieve its suffering,
but the helpless thing under the vivisectionist's knife must be conscious of
every movement and turn of the knife, lest the "good results to humanity"
should be lessened. 1 know many physicians who shrink from the horror of
vivisection as from murder, who yet do more noble, self-sacrificing work for
humanity's good in one month than the "most eminent" and red-handed
vivisectionists can accomplish in a life time. They find time to relieve the
sufferings of the poor as well as the rich s they go as readily into hovels as
into palaces-, they expose themselves to hardship, disease and danger of
death ; they keep faithful watch over patients who they know can never pay
them and let me tell you that when a physician does his duty, and even
more than his duty, at the sacrifice of dollars and cents, he is working for the
love of mankind. Whereas, on the other hand, 1 believe if you could look
into the heart of the "eminent" vivisectionist, you would find that all the
noble " sacrifice of his feelings " was made not so much for the sake of suffer
ing humanity as for a paltry distinction to himself in his profession.
It is a pity that America's children should ape the fashions, customs,
manners, social etiquette, and even peculiarities of speech, of other nations.
We must surely pardon English people for laughing at us and at our frantic .
imitations of their ways. It must be very amusing to them when an Ameri
can assumes an expressionless expression yes, that is precisely the result of
an American's attempt to be English nd drawls out " Fancy I" to every
second remark addressed to her. They would have more respect for us if we
had our own code of etiquette, and required that visitors to America should
do as Americans do. Our cartoonists love to picture America as a tall,
beautiful and noble-browed woman, standing erect in her own dignity, pride
and independence, with swelling bosom and dauntless eyes. It will be humil
iating, one of these fair days, to find her pictured in a Worth gown and
English glasses, ogling some princely roue.
Whenever you read an account of a man's fall, a thousand throats are
ready to shout : " There was a woman at the bottom of it I " But when the
tide brings in the body of a woman and lays it upon the glistening gold of the
sand, does any one ever think to say that her death was due to a man ? My
brothers, be more just, more tender in your judgment for all these cases are
carried to a higher court.
Miss Vima Woods, of Sacramento, California, is one of the young
western poets who " have not knocked at the doors of the eastern magaiines
in vain." Her name flashes out upon you at the bottom of stirring sonnets in
tome of the best publications, and she has taken many priies. Her latest
work is the "The Amaions," a lyrical drama, which is highly praised by the.
critics.