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DELLE W. NORTON.

DAM and his wife may have been highly blessed, in their first enjoyment of Paradise, but they lacked one of life's sweetest blisses. They had no courting time. They married in haste, and their descendants have done the leisurely repenting. So far as we have any record, Miss Eve never waited tremulously of a Sabbath evening for her lover's coming; Adam never dressed himself carefully in his Sunday best and went forth lovingly to meet her. They missed one of the pleasures it were worth while being placed in a garden for.

But the blissful courting experience has one drawback; there is a misery in it for every Miss Eve-people will talk! And that is how this bit of verse came to be written, entitled

DO NOT SLAM THE GATE.

O Harry! pray don't laugh at me!—
But when you go so late,

I wish you would be careful, dear,
And never slam the gate!

For Bessie listens every night,
And so does teasing Kate,
To tell me next day what o'clock

They heard you shut the gate!

'T was nearly ten last night, you know,
But now 't is very late

(We have discussed so many things);
O do not slam the gate!

For if the neighbors hear you, they

Will say our future fate

We have been talking over, so

You must not slam the gate!

I know 't will only be the truth,
But then, I wish they'd wait
To canvass our affairs until-

Well-pray do n't slam the gate!
At least not now. But by-and-by,
When in " our" home, I wait
Your coming, I shall always like
To hear you slam the gate!

For whether you go out or in,

At early hour or late,

They will not care to tease me, ther

About that horrid gate!

We have seen the whimsical waif repeatedly, in newspapers, as have thousands of other people, and have enjoyed its literal portraiture of feminine distress, as have they. It is the only waif of a humorous nature which we have introduced in this series, and we give it because it is truly a waif, its authorship being rarely recognised, and because the hand that wrote it has penned many beautiful poems that have been more or less widely copied.

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It was written by Delle E. Whitney, of Lyons, N. Y., quite a number of years ago, and appeared first as set to melody, in sheet music form. Produced for the concert-room, something humorous having been asked of Miss Whitney for such use, it was often sung by a pretty well known singer at that time, and finding its way into The Ladies' Repository it went the rounds-is going yet. It is the first and last bit of humorous verse its author ever attempted, and is scarcely even regarded by her as humorous, inasmuch as it expressed the real feeling of a young lady living opposite the author's house, who had been regularly teased about "that horrid gate.'

J

A poem less frequently copied than this, yet often seen, and echoing a common experience so truly that it touches the popular heart, is this, originally published in The Galaxy

THE MISSING SHIP.

I watched for her from morn till night
The ship I launched upon a day

When seas were smooth and skies were oright,

And favoring winds blew o'er the bay!

I'd freighted her with many a care,

With tears I'd shed and sighs repressed,

And bade her take my ventures where
She could exchange them all for-rest.

She sailed across the harbor-bar,

And sunshine glimmered in her track

But morning's light or evening's star
Shines not upon her coming back!

And where she is I cannot tell!

Her cargo was of such a sort
It may be she can neither sell
Nor barter it in any port.

And so she sails in fruitless quest
O'er seas reflecting alien skies,—

Yet sailing east or sailing west

Her pennant never homeward flies.

"T is possible the way she 's lost,

Or suffered shipwreck on some shore;
But whether she 's becalmed or tossed
By tempests, she returns no more!

Therefore I'm looking out alway,

With eyes tear-blinded, o'er the sea;
In hope she will sail back some day

With rest for my poor heart and me.

Miss Whitney was born at Fort Edward, Saratoga. county, N. Y., January 1st, 1840. Her girlhood was passed in the town of Moreau, but she attended school mainly in Fort Edward village, at the Academy. Brought up by her grandparents, the first fifteen years of her life were very little watched over. She lived much out of doors, and alone, and came to feel a near sympathy with nature when very young. She early manifested a fondness for books, and was allowed to give herself over almost entirely to reading, writing and dreaming,

which she enjoyed by turns.

When fifteen, she became an invalid, and for a long time battled against disease, her only solace still being her pen and her books.

She commenced writing at an early age, and her first published article appeared in The Cultivator, Boston, in her twelfth year. It was entitled "Jerusalem." A shy, sensitive girl, the habit of seclusion and secrecy strong upon her, she shrunk from telling any one of her litera ry venture, and believing her initial recognition quite unknown in the little village. Greatly to her horror, however, when she went to the post-office for her paper, the clerk quietly ejaculated "Jerusalem!" as he passed it into her hand, and she knew the secret was out.

One of her earlier poems, first printed in The Torchlight, Xenia, O., in 1855, was accounted by the editor of that journal of much merit, judging from a foot-note appended by him, which said:-"To the one who can read this little gem without moist eyes and a trembling heart, there is no pathos in any possible form of language." It is as follows:

CALL ME NO LONGER THINE.

Call me no longer thine! The sunny bowers

Where we have roamed will never know me more!

For thou mayst visit them in future hours,

But my feet, standing on the Unseen Shore,

Shall walk no more with thine!

Turn from my brilliant eyes! They only give thee
Hopes that mislead, and falsely flatt'ring dreams.—