When I saw the little house building, an eighth of a mile beyond my own, on the Old Bay Road, I wondered who were to be the tenants. The modest structure was set well back from the road, among the trees, as if the inmates were to care nothing whatever for a view of the […]

I. THE OLD TAVERN AT BAYLEY’S FOUR CORNERS. You will not find Greenton, or Bayley’s Four-Corners, as it is more usually designated, on any map of New England that I know of. It is not a town; it is not even a village; it is merely an absurd hotel. The almost indescribable place called Greenton […]

One morning as I was passing through Boston Common, which lies between my home and my office, I met a gentleman lounging along The Mall. I am generally preoccupied when walking, and often thread my way through crowded streets without distinctly observing any one. But this man’s face forced itself upon me, and a singular […]

I. At five o’clock on the morning of the tenth of July, 1860, the front door of a certain house on Anchor Street, in the ancient seaport town of Rivermouth, might have been observed to open with great caution. This door, as the least imaginative reader may easily conjecture, did not open itself. It was […]

IN his Memoirs, Kropotkin states the singular fact that the natives of the Malayan Archipelago have an idea that something is extracted from them when their likenesses are taken by photography. Here is the motive for a fantastic short story, in which the hero–an author in vogue or a popular actor–might be depicted as having […]

PISCATAQUA RIVER Thou singest by the gleaming isles,By woods, and fields of corn,Thou singest, and the sunlight smilesUpon my birthday morn. But I within a city, I,So full of vague unrest,Would almost give my life to lieAn hour upon upon thy breast. To let the wherry listless go,And, wrapt in dreamy joy,Dip, and surge idly […]

(An episode from The Story of a Bad Boy, the narrator being Tom Bailey, the hero of the tale.) Every Rivermouth boy looks upon the sea as being in some way mixed up with his destiny. While he is yet a baby lying in his cradle, he hears the dull, far-off boom of the breakers; […]

WHEN an English novelist does us the honor to introduce any of our countrymen into his fiction, he generally displays a commendable desire to present something typical in the way of names for his adopted characters–to give a dash of local color, as it were, with his nomenclature. His success is seldom commensurate to the […]

IN my early Boston days a gentle soul was often to be met with about town, furtively haunting old book-shops and dusty editorial rooms, a man of ingratiating simplicity of manner, who always spoke in a low, hesitating voice, with a note of refinement in it. He was a devout worshiper of Elia, and wrote […]

“The Southern Transept,hardly known by any other name but Poet’s Corner.” DEAN STANLEY. TREAD softly here; the sacredest of tombsAre those that hold your Poets. Kings and queensAre facile accidents of Time and Chance.Chance sets them on the heights, they climb not there!But he who from the darkling mass of menIs on the wing of […]

1851-1870 I Now there was one who came in later daysTo play at Emperor: in the dead of nightStole crown and sceptre, and stood forth to lightIn sudden purple. The dawn’s straggling raysShowed Paris fettered, murmuring in amaze,With red hands at her throat–a piteous sight.Then the new Caesar, stricken with affrightAt his own daring, shrunk […]

A. D. 1670 AGLAE, a widowMURIEL, her unmarried sister. IT happened once, in that brave land that liesFor half the twelvemonth wrapt in sombre skies,Two sisters loved one man. He being dead,Grief loosed the lips of her he had not wed,And all the passion that through heavy yearsHad masked in smiles unmasked itself in tears.No […]

[Midnight.] First, two white arms that held him very close,And ever closer as he drew him backReluctantly, the loose gold-colored hairA thousand delicate fibres reaching outStill to detain him; then some twenty stepsOf iron staircase winding round and down,And ending in a narrow gallery hungWith Gobelin tapestries–AndromedaRescued by Perseus, and the sleek DianaWith her nymphs […]

[Note: Batuschka: “Little Father,” or “Dear Little Father,” a term of endearment applied to the Tsar in Russian folk-song.] From yonder gilded minaretBeside the steel-blue Neva set,I faintly catch, from time to time,The sweet, aerial midnight chime–“God save the Tsar!” Above the ravelins and the moatsOf the white citadel it floats;And men in dungeons far […]

[One of the Bearers soliloquizes:] . . . Room in your heart for him, O Mother Earth,Who loved each flower and leaf that made you fair,And sang your praise in verses manifoldAnd delicate, with here and there a lineFrom end to end in blossom like a boughThe May breathes on, so rich it was. Some […]

GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720 The wind it wailed, the wind it moaned,And the white caps flecked the sea;“An’ I would to God,” the skipper groaned,“I had not my boy with me!” Snug in the stern-sheets, little JohnLaughed as the scud swept by;But the skipper’s sunburnt cheek grew wanAs he watched the wicked sky. “Would he were […]

I Who can say where Echo dwells?In some mountain-cave, methinks,Where the white owl sits and blinks;Or in deep sequestered dells,Where the foxglove hangs its bells,Echo dwells.Echo!Echo! II Phantom of the crystal Air,Daughter of sweet Mystery!Here is one has need of thee;Lead him to thy secret lair,Myrtle brings he for thy hair–Hear his prayer,Echo!Echo! III Echo, […]

I One by one they goInto the unknown dark–Star-lit brows of the brave,Voices that drew men’s souls.Rich is the land, O Death!Can give you dead like our dead!–Such as he from whose handThe magic web of romanceSlipt, and the art was lost!Such as he who erewhile–The last of the Titan brood–With his thunder the Senate […]

I vex me not with brooding on the yearsThat were ere I drew breath: why should I thenDistrust the darkness that may fall againWhen life is done? Perchance in other spheres–Dead planets–I once tasted mortal tears,And walked as now among a throng of men,Pondering things that lay beyond my ken,Questioning death, and solacing my fears.Ofttimes […]

Listen, my masters! I speak naught but truth.From dawn to dawn they drifted on and on,Not knowing whither nor to what dark end.Now the North froze them, now the hot South scorched.Some called to God, and found great comfort so;Some gnashed their teeth with curses, and some laughedAn empty laughter, seeing they yet lived,So sweet […]