IT

MARY WARE.

T is the glory of poesy and of song that it belongs to no country or clime; no national or sectional lines confine its powers, but wherever the sun shines, winds sigh, brooklets murmur or birds sing, its spirit floats free on the blessed air of heaven and its votaries find a shrine. It matters not to us, then, where or when a poet was born. North, South, East or West, the children of song are kindred all. Had Mary Harris found a home for her happy childhood among the pleasant fields of New England instead of the wild, rugged and yet charmingly beautiful hills of Tennessee, she would have been no more, no less the favored daughter of the muse than she is. We may not deny that the wild woodland beauty that hedged in her happy girlhood, the deep blue skies above, the musical ripple of streams and the songs of birds contributed much to the happy expansion of the inborn powers, and when, later on, the Tennessee home was exchanged for the no less wild and romantic home in Alabama, the same conditions of outward loveliness, of peace and gladness, surrounded her. It was there, in that sylvan home, myself then an awkward boy, I first met her, with her gifted brother, Edmund K. Harris. Of him, her twin brother of genius, it is essential to speak. While living, he was her brother, friend, counsellor and guide. When he died, alas! so young, it is no weird stretch of the fancy to say that his mantle fell upon her. A sketch, then, of Mrs. Ware's life would be but half complete without a corollary sketch of his. Brother and sister, they were the children of George and Matilda Roper Harris. Their father was a successful lawyer living in Madisonville, Monroe county, Tenn., where three children were born to him, Mary, Edmund K. and Bruce. In 1844 their father, retiring from the practice of law, removed to Shelby county, Alabama, where the literary life of the brother and sister began. The gentle sister sat and worshiped at her brother's feet, exulting in his flight, but almost fearing to essay a trial of her own wing. At length, longing for a close companionship in achievements as well as in taste, and encouraged by his brotherly as surance, she mustered up the courage to make the venture, resulting in a bright little poem entitled "When Nature Wreathed Her Rosy Bowers." Happily assured by the success of this, her maiden effort, she plumed her wing for still loftier flights. In 1857 her brother established the Shelby Chronicle, in Columbiana, Ala., which he conducted with signal success and ability until he sold it to take a place on the editorial staff of the Mobile Tribune,

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then the leading paper of the State. The untimely death of one so near and doubly dear to her heart was a prostrating blow to the sister, but the Christian faith which has ever been her chiefest joy in life sustained her in her sorrow, and, after a season of mourning, she took up her pen again to pour out her soul in song. In September, 1863, Miss Mary Harris was united in marriage to Horace Ware, then one of the iron kings of the South. In 1883 she, with her husband, removed to their present elegant home in the city of Birmingham, where, surrounded by all that wealth and art can contrive to make life pleasant, she spends her time in study and work, finding in both an avocation at once felicitious and congenial. In July, 1890, Mrs. Ware was again called to mourn, this time, the death of her husband. B. F. S.

WHEN NATURE WREATHED HER ROSY
BOWERS.

WHEN Nature wreathed her rosy bowers,
And sunlight danced amid the flowers,
Young Love, in gaudy hues arrayed,
Within a fairy bower strayed.

A maiden there, with long, fair hair,
And form so light, and face so fair,
She scarce an earthly creature seems;
(Such visions we have met in dreams,
And wondered from what blissful sphere
So bright a thing had wandered here.)
The rover with delight espied,
And swiftly glided to her side.

A tear-drop in her eye of blue,
Soft as a violet, dropping dew,
The urchin saw, and freely laughed,
As light he waved his glitt'ring shaft.

He kissed the pearly tear so bright,
Then on a zephyr took his fiight,
But oh! he left a barbèd dart
Deep in the gentle maiden's heart.

THE BROOK'S WEDDING.

A BRIGHT little brook went dancing by, With many a glance at the soft blue sky, And saying as plain as words could tell: "Come to my forest home and dwell!

"Come from the din of noise and strife, Come from the busy haunts of life, Come where the sky is bright and blue, Come where simple hearts are true!"

And singing, dancing and flashing along,
Its life grew into a beautiful song;
It woke up the violets early in spring,
And they smiled to hear the brooklet sing.

And they opened their blue eyes wider still When they felt the kiss of the laughing rill; And they could not tell which most to loveThe sky in the brook or the one above.

And some water-lilies, stately and fair,
Look'd down in the brook and trimm'd their hair;
Each smiled and nodded with peculiar grace,
As it gazed and wondered at its own fair face.

But the merry brook went dancing by,
Loving most of all the bright blue sky,

Till one day, when the sun was warm and bright,
A fairy creature of wondrous light

Bent over the stream, all light and love, With eyes still bluer than the sky above, And radiant tresses sprinkled with dew, Like a rose-tinted cloud in the ether blue.

And what do you think? This beautiful sprite Was the spirit of song from the regions of light; And when summer lay on her rose-curtained bed; The brook and the spirit were solemnly wed.

Now, the graceful lilies grew stately and wise, And the beautiful violets drooped their blue eyes, And the sky sometimes looks angry and tried, But the brook still clings to its phantom bride.

BEAUTIFUL REST.

BEAUTIFUL hands, folded to rest,

Folded to sleep on the calm, cold breast;
Never to labor with brain or pen;
Never to labor for loved ones again.

Calm sweet face, so peaceful and fair
In a shining halo of snow-white hair.
Not a shadow rests on the beautiful brow;
All sorrow and care have left it now.

The angels have smoothed the furrows of care,
And left the soft light of their presence there.
Folded to rest, without anguish or pain,
Never to worry or trouble again.

Folded away! safely folded away!
Waiting the light of eternity's day;
Waiting and watching for me and for you,
With nothing at last—nothing to do.

No more to worry with business and care;
No more to labor for loved ones left here;
No more to long for the beautiful rest,
That only is found in the home of the blest.

DOST RECOLLECT IT, JENNIE DEAR?

WHEN Summer, like an elfin queen,
With blossom-circled brow,
Sat smiling on the pleasant scene,
So lovely in her sunlit sheen,

But not so fair as thou;
Dost mind it, in the forest green,
Jennie, my heart's own chosen queen,
We plighted first our vow?

Dost recollect it, Jennie dear?
'Twas such a day as this,
When heaven seems to draw so near;
We quite forgot, my Jennie, dear,

That we were in a world like this;
'Twas such a pleasant place, you know,
That all the world did seem aglow,
Trembling, as we, with bliss.

And love has kept our promise green

Through many changing years; But frosts have sered the woods, I ween, And Time's soft fingers, though unseen,

Have planted some gray hairs; But in our hearts, my Jennie, dear, The roses bloom as fresh and fair, Though sometimes wet with tears.

MY BROTHER.

A REMINISCENCE.

EIGHTY-FIVE! how strange to see
How time hath flitted by,
Since he and I together played
Beneath a soft blue sky.

Ah! many a league I've traveled since
Those early dewy hours,

When hope was painted on the sky,

And life was wreathed with flowers.

We looked upon the sky and earth,
And all was very fair,
And wondered that so bright a place
Could be the home of care.

The music of the running brook,
We fashioned into song;

And gathered whispers from the winds
To bear its notes along.

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E

EDMUND K. HARRIS.

DMUND K. HARRIS, brother of Mrs. Mary Ware, was born in Monroe county, Tenn., February 16, 1830. The earliest years of this gifted writer were spent amid his native mountains, breathing Nature's omnipotence in the strength of her hills. Thoughtful, studious, literary, diligent in his research for wisdom, his tastes for books and storied authors were the consummation of a father's hopes, whose mind was a reflection of his own. In 1844, removing with his father's family to Shelby county, Ala., he was placed under the tutelage of an eminent foreign-born English scholar, where he made rapid progress, subsequently assuming control of the Shelby Chronicle. Here his ability and accomplishments were so displayed that in 1857, when one of the editors of the Mobile Tribune was summering in the vicinity, he induced Mr. Harris to return with him to become a member of the editorial staff of the Tribune. Mobile was then prosperous, influential, the flower of Alabama cities, and was indeed to the entire South what Venice was to Mediterranean Europe in the fifteenth century. Mr. Harris died April 16, 1859, when his adopted city was gladdened by the garlands and bloom of a tropic spring. His finely wrought nature was spared the soul-harrowing scenes of the Civil War, and at his death rare tributes were prompted to his memory from the illustrious in the world of letters over the South. B. F. K.

STANZAS.

O LIFE! So dark, so bright, so evanescent,
My heart grows sometimes weary of thy thrall.
Then I would burst these bonds of toil incessant,
Thy sin to flee, thy joy, thy sorrow-all!
Yes, my tired spirit, faint and sorrow-laden,
Would fly away to some sweet isle of rest,
There safe to lie, and, like a low-voiced maiden,
Beguile its woe away on Nature's breast.

In the dim forest I have roved at even,

And, pensive, listened to the birds' sweet lay;
And I have dreamed of a far home in heaven,
Till almost I forgot that I was clay.
Soul of the beautiful, thy spell around me
Would soothe to rest the throbbings of my heart,
But iron fetter's galling chains have bound me,
Whose stubborn links in time will never part.

O Freedom! blessed spirit, grand and holy,
Thou hast no dwelling underneath the sky,
For men are bondsmen, weak, and vile, and lowly,
Born unto suffering, doomed to toil and die.