k along the columned years.
And see Life's riven fane
Just where it fell--amid the jeers
Of scornful lips, whose moaning sneers
Forever hiss within my ears
To break the sleep of pain.

I can but own my life is vain,
A desert void of peace;
I missed the goal I sought to gain--
I missed the measure of the strain
That lulls fame's fever in the brain,
And bids earth's tumult cease.

Myself? Alas for theme so poor!--
A theme but rich in fear;
I stand a wreck on Error's shore,
A specter not within the door,
A homeless shadow evermore,
An exile lingering here!

"KELLY AND BURKE AND SHEA."

At the last banquet of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, in New York,
President Roosevelt, the guest of the evening, asked Joseph I.C. Clarke,
the president of the "Friendly Sons," to recite "The Fighting Race."

Mr. Clarke wrote this poem at the time of the blowing-up of the Maine.
Looking over the list of dead and wounded, he remarked to his wife: "They
are all there, as usual--the Irish. Yes, here we've Kelly and Burke and
Shea----"

Within two hours he had finished the verses which are now recognized as a
lasting tribute to the fighting qualities of the Irishman. The poem makes
a point; it also expresses the conviction and the wistful pride of the old
veteran.

Mr. Clarke was born in Kingstown, Ireland, July 31, 1846, and came to the
United States in 1868. The greater part of his life has been spent in
newspaper offices--on the New York _Herald_, 1870-1883; magazine editor of
the New York _Journal_, 1883-1895; editor of the _Criterion_, 1898-1900;
Sunday editor New York _Herald_, 1903-1905. He is now engaged in writing
plays, work which has taken intervals of his time for a number of years.

THE FIGHTING RACE.

BY JOSEPH I.C. CLARKE.

"Read out the names!" and Burke sat back,
And Kelly dropped his head,
While Shea--they call him Scholar Jack--
Went down the list of dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his 'teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers--all.
Then, knocking the ashes from out his pipe,
Said Burke in an offhand way:
"We're all in that dead man's list, by Cripe!
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain,"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

"Where