We toil-through pain and wrong;

We fight and fly;

We love; we lose; and then, ere long,

Stone-dead we lie.

O Life! is all thy song

"Endure and-die?"

Mrs. Lavinia Stoddard.

AMERICAN.

Mrs. Stoddard (1787-1820) was the daughter of Elijah Stone, and a native of Guilford, Conn. Her family removed to Paterson, N. J.; and in 1811 she was married to Dr. William Stoddard. They established an academy at Troy, N. Y.; but in 1818 removed to Blakely, Ala., where Dr. Stoddard died, leaving his wife in poverty and among strangers. The one poem by which she is known was prompted by her own sad and sincere experiences, and written but a short time before her death. In her life, as in her poem of "The Soul's Defiance," she exemplified the truth of these lines by Shelley: "Wretched men

Are cradled into poetry by wrong:

They learn in suffering what they teach in song."

THE SOUL'S DEFIANCE.

I said to Sorrow's awful storm
That beat against my breast,

"Rage on,-thou mayst destroy this form, And lay it low at rest;

But still the spirit that now brooks

Thy tempest, raging high,

Undaunted on its fury looks,
With steadfast eye."

I said to Penury's meagre train,
"Come on,-your threats I brave;
My last poor life-drop you may drain,
And crush me to the grave;
Yet still the spirit that endures

Shall mock your force the while,

And meet each cold, cold grasp of yours With bitter smile."

I said to cold Neglect and Scorn, "Pass on,-I heed you not;

Ye may pursue me till my form

And being are forgot;

Yet still the spirit, which you see

Undaunted by your wiles,

Draws from its own nobility
Its high-born smiles."

I said to Friendship's menaced blow,

"Strike deep,-my heart shall bear; Thou canst but add one bitter woo

To those already there;

Yet still the spirit that sustains
This last severe distress

Shall smile upon its keenest pains,
And scorn redress."

I said to Death's uplifted dart,
"Aim sure,-oh, why delay?
Thou wilt not find a fearful heart,
A weak, reluctant prey:
For still the spirit, firm and free,
Unruffled by dismay,

Wrapt in its own eternity,
Shall pass away."

Caroline (Bowles) Southey.

337

Caroline Anne Bowles, afterward Mrs. Southey (17871854), was the daughter of Captain Charles Bowles, and born at Buckland, Hants. She lost her parents while young, and in her country retirement cultivated literature successfully. In 1839 she married Southey, poetlaureate, with whom she had long been well acquainted. There is an original vein of pathos distinguishing her poems. Her life, she tells us, was uneventful; for “all her adventures were by the fireside or in her garden, and almost all her migrations from the blue bed to the brown." The following picture of her childhood is impressive:

"My father loved the patient angler's art,
And many a summer's day, from early morn
To latest evening, by some streamlet's side,
We two have tarried; strange companionship!
A sad and silent man; a joyous child!
Yet those were days, as I recall them now,
Supremely happy. Silent though he was,
My father's eyes were often on his child
Tenderly eloquent-and his few words
Were kind and gentle. Never angry tone
Repulsed me if I broke upon his thoughts
With childish question. But I learned at last,
Intuitively learned to hold my peace.

When the dark hour was on him, and deep sighs
Spoke the perturbed spirit-only then

I crept a little closer to his side,

And stole my hand in his, or on his arm

Laid my cheek softly: till the simple wile

Won on his sad abstraction, and he turned

With a faint smile, and sighed and shook his head,

Stooping toward me; so I reached at last

Mine arm about his neck and clasped it close,
Printing his pale brow with a silent kiss."

This passage will be found in her "Birthday," a poem which may be ranked among the most graceful and touching productions of feminine genius.