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Grace Greenword

Two series of Greenwood Leaves, portions of which were originally contributed as letters to the New Mirror of Messrs. Morris and Willis, have been published in Boston by Messrs. Ticknor and Co., who also issued a volume of the author's Poetical Works in 1851. Mrs. Lippincott has also published Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe, including an enthusiastic account of numerous European friends of the author, and several juvenile books, History of My Pets, Recollections of My Childhood and Merrie England. The prose writings of "Grace Greenwood" are animated by a hearty spirit of out-of-door life and enjoyment, and a healthy, sprightly view of society. Her poems are the expressions of a prompt, generous nature.

ARIADNE

[The demi-god, Theseus, having won the love of Ariadne, daughter of the king of Crete, deserted her on the isle of Naxos. In Miss Bremer's "H-Family," the blind girl is described as singing," Ariadne à Naxos," in which Ariadne is represented as following Theseus, climbing a high rock to watch his departing vessel, and calling on him in her despairing anguish.]

Daughter of Crete, how one brief hour,

Ere in thy young love's early morn,
Sends storm and darkness o'er thy bower-
Oh doomed, oh desolate, oh lorn!
The breast which pillowed thy fair head
Rejects its burden-and the eye
Which looked its love so earnestly,
Its last cold glance hath on thee shed-
The arms which were thy living zone,
Around thee closely, warmly thrown,
Shall others clasp, deserted one!

Yet, Ariadne, worthy thou

Of the dark fate which meets thee now,
For thou art grovelling in thy woe-
Arouse thee! joy to bid him go.
For god above, or man below,
Whose love's warm and impetuous tide
Cold interest or selfish pride

Can chill, or stay, or turn aside,
Is all too poor and mean a thing
One shade o'er woman's brow to fling

Of grief, regret, or fear.

To cloud one morning's rosy light,
Disturb the sweet dreams of one night,
To cause the soft lash of her eye
To droop one moment mournfully,
Or tremble with one tear!

'Tis thou should'st triumph-thou art free From chains that bound thee for awhileThis, this the farewell meet for thee,

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Proud princess, on that lonely isle!

'Go, to thine Athens bear thy faithless name! Go, base betrayer of a holy trust!

Oh, I could bow me in my utter shame,

And lay my crimson forehead in the dust,
If I had ever loved thee as thou art,

Folding mean falsehood to my high, true heart!
But thus I loved thee not. Before me bowed
A being glorious in majestic pride

And breathed his love, and passionately vowed
To worship only me, his peerless bride;
And this was thou, but crowned, enrobed, entwined.
With treasures borrowed from my own rich mind.

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I knew thee not a creature of my dreams, And my rapt soul went floating into thine; My love around thee poured such halo beams Had'st thou been true had made thee all divine And I, too, seemed immortal in my bliss, When my glad lip thrilled to thy burning kiss. "Shrunken and shrivelled into Theseus now

Thou stand'st-the gods have blown away The airy crown which glittered on thy brow,

The gorgeous robes which wrapt thee for a day. Around thee scarce one fluttering fragment clings, A poor, lean beggar in all glorious things! "Nor will I deign to cast on thee my hate

It were a ray to tinge with splendour still The dull, dim twilight of thy after fate

Thou shalt pass from me like a dream of ill, Thy name be but a thing that crouching stole, Like a poor thief, all noiseless from my soul! "Though thou hast dared to steal the sacred flame From out that soul's high heaven, she sets thee free,

Or only chains thee with thy sounding shame-
Her memory is no Caucasus for thee!
And even her hovering hate would o'er thee fling
Too much of glory from its shadowy wing!
"Thou think'st to leave my life a lonely night-
Ha, it is night all glorious with its stars!
Hopes yet unclouded beaming forth their light,
And free thoughts welling in their silver cars,
And queenly pride, serene, and cold, and high,
Moves the Diana of its calm, clear sky.
"If poor and humble thou believest me,
Mole of a demi-god, how blind art thou!
For I am rich in scorn to pour on thee,

And gods shall bend from high Olympus' brow,
And gaze in wonder on my lofty pride
Naxos be hallowed, I be deified!"

On the tall cliff, where cold and pale,
Thou watchest his receding sail,

Where thou, the daughter of a king,
Wail'st like a breaking wind-harp's string-
Bend'st like a weak and wilted flower,
Before a summer evening's shower;
There should'st rear thy royal form
Like a young oak amid the storm

Uncrushed, unbowed, unriven!

Let thy last glance burn through the air,
And fall far down upon him there,

Like lightning stroke from heaven!
There should'st thou mark o'er billowy crest,
His white sail flutter and depart;
No wild fears surging at thy breast,

No vain hopes quivering round thy heart! And this brief, burning prayer alone, Leap from thy lips to Jove's high throne: "Just Jove, thy wrathful vengeance stay, And speed the traitor on his way! Make vain the siren's silver song, Let nereids smile the wave along! O'er the wild waters send his barque, Like a swift arrow to its mark! Let whirlwinds gather at his back, And drive him on his dastard track! Let thy red bolts behind him burn, And blast him should he dare to turn!"

ALICE CAREY-PHEBE CAREY.

ALICE CAREY was born in Mount Healthy, near Cincinnati, in 1822. She first attracted notice as a writer by a series of sketches of rural life in the National Era, with the signature of Patty Lee. In 1850 she published, with her younger sister Phebe, a volume of Poems at Philadelphia.

A volume of prose sketches-Clovernook, or Recollections of Our Neighborhood in the Westfollowed in 1851. A second series of these

pleasant papers appeared in 1853. A third gleaning from the same field, for the benefit of more youthful readers, was made in 1855 in Clovernook Children. Lyra, and Other Poems, was published in 1852; followed by Lajar, a Story of To-day, in 1853. She has since published two other stories-Mirried, not Mated, and Hollywood-and a new collection of Poems in 1855.

Miss Alice Carey has rapidly attained a deservedly high position. Her poems are thoughtful, forcible, and melodiously expressed. In common with her prose writings, they are drawn from her own observation of life and nature.

PICTURES OF MEMORY.

Among the beautiful pictures
That hang on Memory's wall,
Is one of a dim old forest,

That seemeth best of all:

Not for its gnarled oaks olden,

Dark with the mistletoe;

Not for the violets golden

That sprinkle the vale below;
Not for the milk-white lilies

That lean from the fragrant hedge,
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams,
And stealing their golden edge;
Not for the vines on the upland

Where the bright red berries rest,

Nor the pinks, nor the pale, sweet cowslip,

It seemeth to me the best.

I once had a little brother,

With eyes that were dark and deep

In the lap of that old dim forest
He lieth in peace asleep:

Light as the down of the thistle,

Free as the winds that blow, We roved there the beautiful summers The summers of long ago;

But his feet on the hills grew weary,
And, one of the autumn eves,

I made for my little brother
A bed of the yellow leaves.
Sweetly his pale arms folded

My neck in a meek embrace,
As the light of immortal beauty
Silently covered his face:
And when the arrows of sunset

Lodged in the tree-tops bright,
He fell, in his saint-like beauty,
Asleep by the gates of light.
Therefore, of all the pictures

That hang on Memory's wall, The one of the dim old forest Seemeth the best of all.

MULBERRY HILL

Oh, sweet was the eve when I came from the mill,
Adown the green windings of Mulberry Hill:
My heart like a bird with its throat all in tune,
That sings in the beautiful bosom of June.
For there, at her spinning, beneath a broad tree,
By a rivulet shining and blue as the sea,

I first saw my Mary-her tiny feet bare,
And the buds of the sumach among her black hair.
They called me a bold enough youth, and I would
Have kept the name honestly earned, if I could;
But, somehow, the song I had whistled was hushed,
And, spite of my manhood, I felt that I blushed.

I would tell you, but words cannot paint my delight,

When she gave the red buds for a garland of white, When her cheek with soft blushes-but no, 'tis in vain!

Enough that I loved, and she loved me again.

Three summers have come and gone by with their charms,

And a cherub of purity smiles in my arms,
With lips like the rosebud and locks softly light
As the flax which my Mary was spinning that night.
And in the dark shadows of Mulberry Hill,
By the grass-covered road where I came from the
mill,

And the rivulet shining and blue as the sea,
My Mary lies sleeping beneath the broad tree.

NOBILITY.

Hilda is a lofty lady,

Very proud is she

I am but a simple herdsman
Dwelling by the sea.

Hilda hath a spacious palace,

Broad, and white, and high;

Twenty good dogs guard the portalNever house had I.

Hilda hath a thousand meadows

Boundless forest lands:

She hath men and maids for service

I have but my hands.

The sweet summer's ripest roses
Hilda's cheeks outvie-

Queens have paled to see her beauty-
But my beard have I.

Hilda from her palace windows

Looketh down on me,

Keeping with my dove-brown oxen
By the silver sea.

When her dulcet harp she playeth,

Wild birds singing nigh,

Cluster, listening, by her white handsBut my reed have I.

I am but a simple herdsman,

With nor house nor lands;

She hath men and maids for service

I have but my hands.

And yet what are all her crimsons
To my sunset sky-

With my free hands and my manhood
Hilda's
peer am I.

MISS PHEBE CAREY has, like her sister, been a frequent contributor to the periodicals of the day. She published in 1854 a volume of Poems and Parodies.

COMING HOME.

How long it seems since first we heard The cry of "land in sight!"

Our vessel surely never sailed

So slowly till to-night.

When we discerned the distant hills,
The sun was scarcely set,

And, now the noon of night is passed,
They seem no nearer yet.
Where the blue Rhine reflected back
Each frowning castle wall,
Where, in the forest of the Hartz,
Eternal shadows fall-

Or where the yellow Tiber flowed
By the old hills of Rome-

I never felt such restlessness,

Such longing for our home.

Dost thou remember, oh, my friend,
When we beheld it last,

How shadows from the setting sun
Upon our cot were cast?

Three summer-times upon its walls
Have shone for us in vain;

But oh, we're hastening homeward now,
To leave it not again.

There, as the last star dropped away

From Night's imperial brow,

Did not our vessel "round the point?"
The land looks nearer now!

Yes, as the first faint beams of day
Fell on our native shore,
They're dropping anchor in the bay,
We're home, we're home once more!

ELISE JUSTINE BAYARD.

MISS E. J. BAYARD, the daughter of Mr. Robert Bayard of Glenwood, near Fishkill, N. Y., is the author of a number of poems, several of which have appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine and Literary World. The following is noticeable for its thought and feeling, and no less for its happy literary execution.

FUNERAL CHANT FOR THE OLD YEAR.

'Tis the death-night of the solemn Old Year!
And it calleth from its shroud
With a hollow voice and loud,
But serene:

And it saith- What have I given
That hath brought thee nearer heaven?
Dost thou weep, as one forsaken,

For the treasures I have taken?

Standest thou beside my hearse
With a blessing or a curse?
Is it well with thee, or worse
That I have been?

"Tis the death-night of the solemn Old Year!
The midnight shades that fall,-
They will serve it for a pall,
In their gloom ;—

And the misty vapours crowding
Are the withered corse enshrouding;
And the black clouds looming off in
The far sky, have plumed the coffin,
But the vaults of human souls,
Where the memory unrolls
All her tear-besprinkled scrolls,
Are its tomb!

Tis the death-night of the solemn Old Year!
The moon hath gone to weep

With a mourning still and deep
For her loss:-

The stars dare not assemble
Through the murky night to tremble-
The naked trees are groaning
With an awful, mystic moaning-
Wings sweep upon the air,
Which a solemn message bear,
And hosts, whose banners wear
A crowned cross!

'Tis the death-night of the solemn Old Year! Who make the funeral train

When the queen hath ceased to reign?
Who are here

With the golden crowns that follow
All invested with a halo!

With a splendour transitory

Shines the midnight from their glory,

And the pæan of their song

Rolls the aisles of space along,
But the left hearts are less strong,
For they were dear!

"Tis the death-night of the solemn Old Year!
With a dull and heavy tread
Tramping forward with the dead
Who come last?

Ling'ring with their faces groundward,
Though their feet are marching onward,
They are shrieking,-they are calling
On the rocks in tones appalling,

But Earth waves them from her view,—
And the God-light dazzles through,
And they shiver, as spars de,
Before the blast!

'Tis the death-night of the solemn Old Year!
We are parted from our place
In her motherly embrace,

And are lone!

For the infant and the stranger
It is sorrowful to change her-
She hath cheered the night of mourning
With a promise of the dawning;

She hath shared in our delight
With a gladness true and bright:
Oh! we need her joy to-night-
But she is gone!

CAROLINE MAY.

THIS lady is the daughter of a clergyman of the Dutch Reformed Church of the City of New York. The chief collection of her poems is included in a few pages of Mr. Griswold's Female Poets of America. She is the editor of a Collection of the Female Poots of America, which ap

peared at Philadelphia in 1848, and of a volume, Treasured Thoughts from Favorite Authors.

THE SABBATH OF THE YEAR.

It is the sabbath of the year;
And if ye'll walk abroad,
A holy sermon ye shall hear,
Full worthy of record.

Autumn the preacher is; and look-
As other preachers do,

He takes a text from the one Great Book,

A text both sad and true.

With a deep, earnest voice, he saith-
A voice of gentle grief,

Fitting the minister of Death-
"Ye all fade as a leaf;

And your iniquities, like the wind,

Have taken you away;

Ye fading flutterers, weak and blind,
Repent, return, and pray.”

And then the Wind ariseth slow,
And giveth out a psalm-
And the organ-pipes begin to blow,
Within the forest calm;

Then all the Trees lift up their hands,
And lift their voices higher,
And sing the notes of spirit bands
In full and glorious choir.
Yes! 'tis the sabbath of the year!
And it doth surely seem,
(But words of reverence and fear
Should speak of such a theme,)
That the corn is gathered for the bread,
And the berries for the wine,
And a sacramental feast is spread,

Like the Christian's pardon sign.
And the Year, with sighs of penitence,
The holy feast bends o'er;
For she must die, and go out hence-
Die, and be seen no more.
Then are the choir and organ still,
The psalm melts in the air,

The Wind bows down beside the hill,
And all are hushed in prayer.

Then comes the Sunset in the West,
Like a patriarch of old,

Or like a saint who hath won his rest,
His robes, and his crown of gold;
And forth his arms he stretcheth wide,
And with solemn tone and clear
He blesseth, in the eventide,
The sabbath of the year.

HARRIET WINSLOW LIST.

THE following poem was brought into notice a few years since by Mr. Longfellow, who included it in the choice collection of minor poems, The Waif. It was printed there anonymously with the omission of a few of its stanzas. The author was Miss Harriet Winslow, since married to Mr. Charles List of Pennsylvania.

TO THE UNSATISFIED.

Why thus longing, thus for ever sighing

For the far-off, unattained and dim; While the beautiful all around thee lying, Offers up its low, perpetual hymn? Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching, All thy restless yearning it would still, Leaf and flower and laden bee are preaching Thine own sphere, though humble, first to fill. VOL. II.-44

Poor indeed thou must be, if around thee Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw; If no silken cord of love hath bound thee

To some little world through weal or woe;

If no dear eyes thy fond love can brighten,—
No fond voices answer to thine own;
If no brother's sorrow thou canst lighten
By daily sympathy and gentle tone.
Not by deeds that win the crowd's applauses,
Not by works that give thee world-renown,
Not by martyrdom, or vaunted crosses,

Canst thou win and wear the immortal crown: Daily struggling, though unloved and lonely, Every day a rich reward will give; Thou wilt find, by hearty striding only, And truly loving, thou canst truly live. Dost thou revel in the rosy morning,

When all nature hails the lord of light; And his smile, the mountain-tops adorning, Robes yon fragrant field in radiance bright. Other hands may grasp the field and forest; Proud proprietors in pomp may shine:

But with fervent love if thou adorest,

Thou art wealthier;-all the world is thine. Yet, if through earth's wide domains thou rovest, Sighing that they are not thine alone,

Not those fair fields, but thyself thou lovest,
And their beauty, and thy wealth are gone.
Nature wears the colours of the spirit;
Sweetly to her worshipper she sings;
All the glory, grace, she doth inherit
Round her trusting child she fondly flings.

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MISS CHESEBRO' was born at Canandaigua, where she has always resided with her family. Her first literary articles, a series of tales and sketches, were written for Graham's Magazine and Holden's Dollar Magazine in 1848. Since that time contributions have appeared from her pen in The Knickerbocker, Putnam's, Harpers', and other magazines, and in the newspapers, to which on two occasions, in Philadelphia and New York, she contributed prize tales. In 1851 she published a collection of tales and sketches, Dream-Land by Daylight, a Panorama of Romance. The title is suggestive of the fanciful, reflective, and occasionally sombre character of the work, qualities which also mark Miss Chesebro's later and more elaborate productions, Isa, a Pilgrimage, and The Children of Light, a Theme for the Times, tales, each occupying a separate volume, and written with energy and thoughtfulness. The scene of these writings is laid in America at the present day. They are grave in tone, and aim rather at the exhibition of mental emotion than the outward, salient points of character.

THE BLACK FROST.
Methinks

This word of love is fit for all the world,
And that for gentle hearts another name

Would speak of gentler thoughts than the world owns.

It was a clear, calm night. Brightly shone the innumerable stars: the fixed orbs of giant magnitude, the little twinkling points of light, the glorious constellations in their imperial beauty stood they, gazing upon the mysterious face of darkness-a clear, calm, terribly cold night.

Winter had not as yet fairly set in. There had been no snow, but it was very late in the autumn, and the grass, and the flowering shrubs and trees, looked as though they had each and all felt the cruel breath of the Destroyer, as he pronounced the doom upon them.

People rubbed their hands, and talked with quivering lips of the hard winter coming, as they hastened, in the increasing shadows of the night, to their homes. The children, warmed and gladdened by the bright fires that were kindled on the hearthstones, romped, and frolicked, and prophesied, with knowing looks, about snow-balling, sleigh-rides, skating, and all manner of fun. The young girls met together, and talked merrily of coming gaieties; the old man wondered whether he should see another spring-time; and the poor crept to their beds at nightfall, glad to forget everything-cold, hunger, and misery-in sleep.

Midnight came. More and more brightly shone the stars-they glowed, they trembled, and smiled on one another. The cold became intense-in the deep silence how strangely looked the branches of the leafless trees! how desolate the gardens and the forest-how very still the night did seem!

Close beside an humble cottage, under a huge bush of flowering-currant, had flourished all the autumn a tiny violet-root. And still, during the increasing cold of the latter days, the leaves had continued green and vigorous, and the flowers opened.

There had been an arrival at the cottage that day. Late in the afternoon, a father and mother, with their child, had returned from long wandering in foreign lands.

A student had watched their coming. In the morning, he had gathered a flower from that little root in their garden, and now, as he sat in the long hours of night, poring over his books, he kept the violet still beside him, in a vase which held the treasures of a green-house, and his eyes rested often on the pale blue modest flower.

At nightfall, a youthful form had stood for a moment at the cottage-door, and the young invalid's eyes, which so eagerly sought all familiar things, at last rested on those still living flowers-flowers, where she had thought to find all dead, even as were those buds which once gave fair promise of glorious opening in her girl-heart! Unmindful of the cold and dampness, she stepped from the house, and passed to the violet-root, and, gathering all the flowers but one, she placed them in her hair, and then hastened with a shiver back to the cottage.

In the fast-increasing cold, the leaves that were left bowed down close to the earth, and the delicate flowers crowning the pale, slender stem, trembled under the influence of the frost.

The little chamber where Mary lay down to rest, was that which, from her childhood, had been set apart for her occupation; a pleasant room, endeared to her by a thousand joyful dreams dreamed within its shade-solemnized to her also by that terrible wakening to sorrow which she had known.

She reclined now on her bed in the silentness, the darkness; but she rested not, she slept not. The young girl's eyes, fixed on the far-off stars, on the glorious heavens, her thoughts wandered wild and free, but her body was circled by the arm of Death.

She had not yet slept at all that night; she had not slept for many nights. Winter was reigning in Mary's heart-it had long reigned there. She was remembering now, while others nestled in the arms of forgetfulness, those days that were gone, when she had looked with such trust and joy upon the years to be-how that she had longed for the slowlyunfolding future to develop itself fully, completely! how she had wholly given herself to the fancies and the hopes of the untried. Alas! she had reached, she had passed, too soon, that crisis of life which unfolds next to the expectant the season of wintershe had seen the gay flowers fading, the leaves withering, the glory of summer pass. And yet how young, how very young she was!

They who saw the shadow brooding over her, out of which she could not move, they who loved, who almost worshipped her, the father and the mother, had in every manner sought, how vainly! to stop the course of that disease which fastened upon herthey could not dispel the sorrow which had blighted her life. She also, for a moment, desperately as they, had striven with her grief, but now, in the cheerless autumn time, she was come back to her home, feeling that it would be easier there to die.

Gazing from her couch out upon the "steadfast skies"-thinking on the past, and the to-come-the

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