"Thanks!" said the Judge: "a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown,

And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!

He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.

My father should wear a broadcloth coat,
My brother should sail a painted boat.

I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.

And I'd feed the hungry, and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still:

"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.

Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay!

No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

But low of cattle and song of birds,
And health and quiet and loving words."

But he thought of his sister, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover blooms;

And the proud man sighed with a secret pain, — "Ah, that I were free again!

Free as when I rode that day

Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer's sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow iot,
And she heard the little spring-brook fall
Over the road-side, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned;

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty, and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!*

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And in the hereafter angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away.

"HE was great in his genius, unhappy in his life, wretched in his death. But in his fame he is im

mortal."

Such are the words inscribed on the bronze and marble memorial of Edgar Allan Poe, set up in the New York Museum of Art in the spring of 1885, thirty-six years after the body of him whom it commemorates had found a nameless grave in a Baltimore churchyard. They outline for us the career of a being of strange endowments, whose personality remains lastingly striking, and whose career is profoundly affecting and instructive.

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Jan. 19, 1809. His father David Poe, was the son of a distinguished officer in the Revolutionary army, and was educated for the bar; but becoming enamored of a beautiful actress he married her, abandoned his profession, and went himself on the stage. Poe has referred to his mother, Elizabeth Arnold, as "a woman who, although well born, hesitated not to consecrate to the drama her brief career of genius and beauty."

In a few years the youthful couple died of consumption (within a very short time of each other), leaving three young children entirely destitute. Edgar, the second child, was a remarkably bright and beautiful boy, and at the age of six was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a wealthy citizen of Richmond, from whom he