THE OLD FASHION.

    “The old, old fashion,—­Death!  Oh, thank God, all who see it, for
    that older fashion yet, of Immortality!”

    —­Dickens.

Despite all human passion,
  And all that we can do,—­
There is an old, old fashion
  That comes to me and you. 
It has come to me so often
  That I know its meaning well,
Nothing its pain can soften
  Nothing its power can quell.

When the battle-field was silent,
  Gone to their final rest,
Dead in their last encampment
  Lay the ones I loved the best. 
And then, when my heart was lightest,
  It came with a snake-like tread,
And darkened the day that was brightest,
  Then left me with my dead.

It came in the wild March weather
  With bluster of storm and sleet,
And stilled in our home forever
  The patter of boyish feet. 
And then,—­God pity my treason,
  When life again had smiled,
It came in the holiday season
  And took from me my child.

“Give thanks for the old, old fashion,”
  No, that can never be. 
Where is the Divine compassion
  That God has shown to me? 
Fling wide each shining portal,—­
  Let me—­a sinner through,—­
Thank God for the immortal
  Is all that I can do.

No prayer of love or passion
  Can give my dead to me,
But I bless the old, old fashion,
  Of immortality.

MY BABY AND THE ROSE.

A rose tree grew by the garden wall,
And its highest blossom was just as tall
  As my baby’s curly head;
A lovely, fragrant, perfect rose,—­
But sweeter from head to dimpled toes,
  Was the baby I fondly led.

Now summer is over and winter gone,
And the winds of March are whistling on
  Where the rose its petals shed;
No trace of rose perfumed and rare,
No baby face as seraph fair,
  My baby sweet is dead.

The summer sun will shine again,
And ’neath the pattering, warm June rain,
  Again the rose will bloom,
And so beyond these lowering skies
My baby dear, with smiling eyes,
  Shall peer through earthly gloom,

And guide me with her angel hand
Through Heaven’s gates,—­and with me stand
  Away from worldly woes,—­
Where Heaven’s flowers, divinely sweet,
Soften the path for weary feet
  With perfume of the rose.

FOLGER McKINSEY.

Folger McKinsey was born in Elkton, on the 29th of August, 1866, in the cottage on Bow street now occupied by Thomas W. Green.  His early life was spent in Elkton, except a few years in childhood when his parents resided in the West and South, until 1879, when they removed to Philadelphia, taking their son with them.  His paternal grandfather was a Scotchman, and his grand parents on his mother’s side were Germans, from the country bordering on the Rhine.  Through the marriage of his maternal great grandmother he is distantly related to Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe.  Both his parents are persons of intellectual ability, and have written verse, his mother having been a contributor to the local newspapers of this county, and to several western journals.