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492

ELIZABEH OAKES SMITH.

ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH.

[Daughter of a Mr. Prince. Married at the age of sixteen Mr. Seba Smith, a newspaper-editor and poet, popular under his pseudonym of "Jack Downing." Mrs. Smith has published writings of various kinds, including tragedies, and a novel printed in 1842, named The Western Captive].

DESPONDENCY.

WHEN thou didst leave me, Hope, why didst thou not,
In place of thy sweet presence, leave Despair,
With her grim visage and disordered hair?
The past, the future, then had been forgot—
The soul concentred on its blasted lot,

Had rested mute and desolate of care-
Had ceased to question where its treasures were,
And roamed no more the melancholy spot.

But now, too much remembering of the past,
So huge the weight of gloom around me spread
That I, like one within a charnel cast,
Hear but the dirges ringing for the dead-

Feel all the pangs of life, and thought, and breath,
Yet walk I all the time with hand in hand of Death.

CHARITY, IN DESPAIR OF JUSTICE.
OUTWEARIED with the littleness and spite,
The falsehood and the treachery, of men,
I cried "Give me but justice"-thinking then
I meekly craved a common boon, which might
Most easily be granted. Soon the light

Of deeper truth grew on my wandering ken
(Escaped the baneful damps of stagnant fen);
And then I saw that, in my pride bedight,

I claimed from weak-eyed man the gift of Heaven,
God's own great vested right !—and I grew calm,
With folded hands, like stone to Patience given,
And pityings of meek love-distilling balm—
And now I wait in hopeful trust to be

All known to God, and ask of man sweet charity.

EMILY JUDSON.

[Mrs. Judson, then Miss Emily Chubbuck, was known as a magazine-writer under the pseudonym of "Fanny Forester," and began to become popular in 1841. In 1846 she made the acquaintance of the missionary Judson, then returned to America from India and Burmah, and recently left a widower. She married him, and, glowing with zeal for the spread of the gospel, went back with him to India, and seconded his missionary efforts. She is not now living, but I cannot give the date of her death].

MY BIRD.

ERE last year's moon had left the sky,
A birdling sought my Indian nest,
And folded, oh so lovingly,

Its tiny wings upon my breast.

From morn till evening's purple tinge,
In winsome helplessness she lies;
Two rose-leaves, with a silken fringe,
Shut softly on her starry eyes.
There's not in Ind a lovelier bird;

Broad earth owns not a happier nest;
O God, thou hast a fountain stirred
Whose waters nevermore shall rest!
This beautiful, mysterious thing,

This seeming visitant from heaven,
This bird with the immortal wing,

To me to me thy hand has given!
The pulse first caught its tiny stroke,
The blood its crimson hue, from mine:
This life, which I have dared invoke,
Henceforth is parallel with thine.

A silent awe is in my room

I tremble with delicious fear;
The future, with its light and gloom,
Time and eternity are here.

Doubts, hopes, in eager tumult rise;
Hear, oh my God! one earnest prayer:

Room for my bird in paradise,

And give her angel plumage there!

SARAH J. CLARKE.

[Sister of a barrister. Miss Clarke began writing for the press in 1844, under the name of "Grace Greenwood," which soon became extremely popular; and she has since then continued to be a prolific authoress, chiefly in prose].

ILLUMINATION FOR THE TRIUMPH OF OUR
ARMS IN MEXICO.

LIGHT up thy homes, Columbia,

For those chivalric men

Who bear to scenes of warlike strife
Thy conquering arms again;
Where glorious victories, flash on flash,
Reveal their stormy way—

Resaca's, Palo Alto's fields,

The heights of Monterey !

They pile with thousands of thy foes
Buena Vista's plain;

With maids and wives, at Vera Cruz,
Swell high the list of slain;
They paint upon the southern skies
The blaze of burning domes-
Their laurels dew with blood of babes :
Light up, light up thy homes!

Light up your homes, oh fathers!

For those young hero bands

Whose march is still through vanquished towns
And over conquered lands;

Whose valour wild, impetuous,

In all its fiery glow

Pours onward like a lava-tide,

And sweeps away the foe!

For those whose dead brows Glory crowns,
On crimson couches sleeping;

And for home faces wan with grief,

And fond eyes dim with weeping:
And for the soldier, poor, unknown,

Who battled madly brave,
Beneath a stranger-soil to share
A shallow, crowded grave.

Light up thy home, young mother!
Then gaze in pride and joy
Upon those fair and gentle girls,
That eagle-eyed young boy;
And clasp thy darling little one
Yet closer to thy breast,
And be thy kisses on its lips

In yearning love impressed.

In yon beleaguered city

Were homes as sweet as thine ;
There trembling mothers felt loved arms
In fear around them twine;

The lad with brow of olive hue,
The babe like lily fair,

The maiden with her midnight eyes
And wealth of raven hair.

The booming shot, the murderous shell,
Crashed through the crumbling walls,

And filled with agony and death

Those sacred household halls;

Then bleeding, crushed, and blackened, lay
The sister by the brother,
And the torn infant gasped and writhed
On the bosom of the mother!

Oh sisters, if you have no tears
For fearful scenes like these ;

If the banners of the victors veil
The victim's agonies;

If ye lose the babe's and mother's cry
In the noisy roll of drums;

If your hearts with martial pride throb high-
Light up, light up your homes!

495

PAUL H. HAYNE.

[A poet of one of the Southern States of the Union. He published in 1860 a volume named Avolio, a Legend of the Island of Cos, with Poems Lyrical, Miscellaneous, and Dramatic].

SONNET.

An hour agone, and prostrate Nature lay

Like some sore-smitten creature nigh to death, With feverish parched lips, with labouring breath, And languid eyeballs darkening to the day. A burning Noontide ruled with merciless sway Earth, wave, and air; the ghastly-stretching heath, The sullen trees, the fainting flowers beneath, Drooped hopeless, shrivelling in the torrid ray ;When, like a sud den, cheerful trumpet blown

Far off by rescuing spirits, rose the wind Urging great hosts of clouds; the thunder's tone Breaks into wrath; the rainy cataracts fall.

But, pausing soon, behold Creation shrined In a new birth,-God's Covenant clasping all!

ALICE BRADLEY NEAL.

MIDNIGHT.

I HAD been tossing through the restless night,-
Sleep banished from my pillow, and my brain
Weary with sense of dull and stifling pain,—
Yearning and praying for the blessed light.
My lips moaned thy dear name, beloved one;
Yet I had seen thee lying still and cold,
Thy form bound only by the shroud's pure fold,
For life with all its suffering was done.

Then agony of loneliness o'ercame

My widowed heart. Night would fit emblem seem
For the evanishing of that bright dream.

The heavens were dark my life henceforth the same.
No hope its pulse within my breast was dead.
No light the clouds hung heavily o'erhead.

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