forever, a sense of dreary emptiness oppressed him, as if his very abode had been deserted by every living thing. He walked into his mother's chamber. The naked bedstead, and the chair in which she used to sit, were all that was left in the room. As he threw himself back into the chair, he groaned in the bitterness of his spirit. A feeling of forlornness came over him, which was not to be relieved by tears. She, whom he had watched over in her dying hour, and whom he had talked to as she lay before him in death, as if she could hear and answer him, had gone from him. Nothing was left for the senses to fasten fondly on, and time had not yet taught him to think of her only as a spirit. But time and holy endeavors brought this consolation; and the little of life that a wasting disease left him was passed by him, when alone, in thoughtful tranquillity; and amongst his friends he appeared with that gentle cheerfulness which, before his mother's death, had been a part of his nature.

MRS. SIGOURNEY, 1791.

LYDIA HUNTLEY, now MRS. SIGOURNEY, is the only child of the late Ezekiel Huntley, of Norwich, where she was born on the 1st of September, 1791. In her earliest years she gave evidence of uncommon abilities, and her parents determined that every pains should be taken to have them rightly cultivated. At eight years of age she began to develop those poetical talents which have since made her name so widely and favorably known. After enjoying the advantages of the schools of her native town, and attending for some time a boardingschool in Hartford, Miss Huntley, in connection with a friend and kindred spirit, Mary Maria Hyde, opened a school for young ladies in Norwich, which she continued for two years. She then removed to Hartford, where she remained for several years, in the same pursuit.

In 1815, Miss Huntley was induced by Daniel Wadsworth, Esq., an intelligent and wealthy merchant of Hartford, to give a volume of her poems to the public. It was published under the modest title of "Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse," which showed very clearly that an author who had done so well, could do still better. In 1819, she was married to Charles Sigourney, Esq., a leading merchant of Hartford, and a gentleman of education and literary taste. She did not

appear again as an author till 1822, when she published "Traits of the Aborigines of America," a descriptive, historical, and didactic poem, in five cantos. In 1824, she published, in prose, "A Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years Since;" in 1828, a volume of "Poems, by the author of Moral Pieces ;” in 1833, “Poetry for Children;" in 1835, "Zinzendorf, and other Poems ;" in 1836, "Letters to Young Ladies ;" and in 1838, "Letters to Mothers." In the summer of 1840, she went to Europe, and, after visiting many of the most interesting places in England, Scotland, and France, and publishing a collection of her works in London, she returned, in the following April, to Hartford.

In 1841, she published a selection of her poems, such as her matured judgment esteemed the best; and in the same year appeared "Pocahontas," the best of her long poems. Early in 1843, appeared in Boston her "Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands," the records, in prose and verse, of the interesting objects and persons she saw in her European tour. Two years afterwards, this was followed by a similar work, entitled "Scenes in my Native Land." In 1856, she published that charming book “Past Meridian,” and the next year "Examples from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries," a volume of brief biographical sketches, or rather pictures of character, selected with much judgment, and wrought out with taste and feeling.

Any writer, whether of prose or poetry, might well be proud of the fame Mrs. Sigourney has acquired, and which she will retain to the latest posterity; for everything she has written has been pure, lofty, and holy, in its whole tone and influence. Other writers have had more learning, and more genius, but none have employed their talents for a higher end-to make the world wiser, happier, holier. An accomplished scholar2 has remarked of her poems that "they express, with great purity and evident sincerity, the tender affections which are so natural to the female heart, and the lofty aspirations after a higher and better state of being, which constitute the truly ennobling and elevating principle in art, as well as nature. Love and Religion

"Mrs. Sigourney has never before written so wisely, so usefully, so beautifully, as in this volume. In saying so, we yield to none in our high appreciation of her previous literary merit; but, unless we greatly mistake, this is one of the comparatively few books of our day which will be read with glistening eyes and glowing heart, when all who now read it will have gone to their graves. It is written by her in the character of one who has passed the meridian of life, and addresses itself to sensations and experiences which all whose faces are turned westward can understand, and feel with her. It is devotion, philosophy, and poetry, so intertwined, that each is enriched and adorned by the association. Above all, it blends with the serene sunset of a well-spent life, the young morning beams of the never-setting day."—North Am. Review, Jan. 1857.

Alexander H. Everett.

are the unvarying elements of her song. If her power of expression was equal to the purity and elevation of her habits of thought and feeling, she would be a female Milton, or a Christian Pindar. But

though she inherit

Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,

That the Theban eagle bear;
Sailing with supreme dominion

Through the azure deep of air;'

she nevertheless manages language with ease and elegance, and often with much of the curiosa felicitas, that 'refined felicity' of expression, which is, after all, the principal charm in poetry. In blank verse she is very successful. The poems that she has written in this measure have not unfrequently much of the manner of Wordsworth, and may be nearly or quite as highly relished by his admirers."

WIDOW AT HER DAUGHTER'S BRIDAL.

Deal gently thou, whose hand hath won
The young bird from its nest away,
Where careless, 'neath a vernal sun,
She gayly caroll'd, day by day;
The haunt is lone, the heart must grieve,
From whence her timid wing doth soar,
They pensive list at hush of eve,

Yet hear her gushing song no more.

Deal gently with her; thou art dear,
Beyond what vestal lips have told,
And, like a lamb from fountains clear,
She turns confiding to thy fold;
She round thy sweet domestic bower

The wreath of changeless love shall twine,

Watch for thy step at vesper hour,

And blend her holiest prayer with thine.

Deal gently thou, when, far away,

Mid stranger scenes her foot shall rove,

Nor let thy tender care decay

The soul of woman lives in love:

And shouldst thou, wondering, mark a tear,
Unconscious, from her eyelids break,

Be pitiful, and soothe the fear

That man's strong heart may ne'er partake.

A mother yields her gem to thee,
On thy true breast to sparkle rare,
She places 'neath thy household tree

The idol of her fondest care;

And by thy trust to be forgiven,

When judgment wakes in terror wild,
By all thy treasured hopes of heaven,
Deal gently with the widow's child.

429

NIAGARA.

Flow on for ever, in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty-God hath set
His rainbow on thy forehead, and the cloud
Mantled around thy feet.-And he doth give
Thy voice of thunder power to speak of him
Eternally-bidding the lip of man

Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour
Incense of awe-struck praise.

And who can dare

To lift the insect trump of earthly hope,
Or love, or sorrow-'mid the peal sublime
Of thy tremendous hymn ?-Even Ocean shrinks
Back from thy brotherhood, and his wild waves
Retire abashed.-For he doth sometimes seem

To sleep like a spent laborer, and recall
His wearied billows from their vexing play,
And lull them to a cradle calm: but thou,
With everlasting, undecaying tide,

Dost rest not night or day.

The morning stars,

When first they sang o'er young creation's birth,
Heard thy deep anthem-and those wrecking fires
That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve
The solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name
Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears,
On thine unfathomed page.-Each leafy bough
That lifts itself within thy proud domain,
Doth gather greenness from thy living spray,
And tremble at the baptism.-Lo! yon birds
Do venture boldly near, bathing their wing
Amid thy foam and mist.-'Tis meet for them
To touch thy garment's hem-or lightly stir
The snowy leaflets of thy vapor wreath-
Who sport unharmed upon the fleecy cloud,
And listen at the echoing gate of heaven,
Without reproof.-But as for us-it seems
Scarce lawful with our broken tones to speak
Familiarly of thee.-Methinks, to tint
Thy glorious features with our pencil's point,
Or woo thee to the tablet of a song,
Were profanation.

Thou dost make the soul

A wondering witness of thy majesty ;
And while it rushes with delirious joy
To tread thy vestibule, dost chain its step,
And check its rapture with the humbling view
Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand
In the dread presence of the Invisible,
As if to answer to its God through thee.

MONODY ON MRS. HEMANS.

Nature doth mourn for thee.

There comes a voice

From her far solitudes, as though the winds
Murmured low dirges, or the waves complained.
Even the meek plant, that never sang before
Save one brief requiem, when its blossoms fell,
Seems through its drooping leaves to sigh for thee,
As for a florist dead. The ivy, wreathed
Round the gray turrets of a buried race,

And the proud palm trees, that like princes rear
Their diadems 'neath Asia's sultry sky,

Blend with their ancient lore thy hallowed name.
Thy music, like baptismal dew, did make
Whate'er it touched more holy. The pure shell,
Pressing its pearly lip to Ocean's floor;

The cloistered chambers, where the seagods sleep;
And the unfathomed, melancholy Main,

Lament for thee through all the sounding deeps.
Hark! from sky-piercing Himmaleh, to where
Snowdon doth weave his coronet of cloud-
From the scathed pine tree, near the red man's hut,
To where the everlasting Banian builds
Its vast columnar temple, comes a wail
For her who o'er the dim cathedral's arch,
The quivering sunbeam on the cottage wall,
Or the sere desert, poured the lofty chant
And ritual of the muse: who found the link
That joins mute Nature to ethereal mind,
And made that link a melody.

The vales

Of glorious Albion heard thy tuneful fame,

And those green cliffs, where erst the Cambrian bards

Swept their indignant lyres, exulting tell

How oft thy fairy foot in childhood climbed

Their rude, romantic heights.

Yet was the couch

Of thy last slumber in yon verdant isle

Of song, and eloquence, and ardent soul

Which, loved of lavish skies, though banned by fate,