Amid the whistling March winds,
Amid the April showers;
He warbles with the singing birds
And blossoms with the flowers;
He cares not for the summer heat,
He cares not for the cold-
My sturdy little step-son,

That's only five years old.

How touching 'tis to see him clasp
His dimpled hands in prayer,
And raise his little rosy face
With reverential air!
How simple is his eloquence,
How soft his accents fall,
When pleading with the King of kings
To love and bless us all!

And when from prayer he bounds away
In innocence and joy,

The blessing of a smiling God
Goes with the sinless boy;
A little lambkin of the flock,
Within the Savior's fold,
Is he my lovely step-son,

That's only five years old.

I have not told you of our home,
That in the summer hours
Stands in its simple modesty

Half hid among the flowers;
I have not said a single word

About our mines of wealth-Our treasures are this little boy, Contentment, peace, and health; For even a lordly hall to us

Would be a voiceless place Without the gush of his glad voice, The gleams of his bright face: And many a courtly pair, I ween, Would give their gems and gold For a noble, happy boy, like ours, Some four or five years old.

THE PRESENCE OF GOD. O Thou, who flingst so fair a robe

Of clouds around the hills untrodThose mountain-pillars of the globe, Whose peaks sustain thy throne, O God! All glittering round the sunset skies,

Their trembling folds are lightly furled, As if to shade from mortal eyes

The glories of yon upper world; There, while the evening star upholds In one bright spot their purple folds, My spirit lifts its silent prayer, For thou, the God of love, art there. The summer flowers, the fair, the sweet, Upspringing freely from the sod, In whose soft looks we seem to meet At every step thy smiles, O God! The humblest soul their sweetness shares, They bloom in palace-hall, or cot; Give me, O Lord! a heart like theirs, Contented with my lowly lot! Within their pure, ambrosial bells,

In odors sweet, thy Spirit dwells;
Their breath may seem to scent the air-
'Tis thine, O God! for thou art there.
List! from yon casement low and dim
What sounds are these that fili the breeze?
It is the peasant's evening hymn

Arrests the fisher on the seas:
The old man leans his silver hairs
Upon his light-suspended oar,
Until those soft, delicious airs

Have died like ripples on the shore.
Why do his eyes in softness roll?
What melts the manhood from his soul
His heart is filled with peace and prayer,
For thou, O God! art with him there.
The birds among the summer blooms

Pour forth to thee their strains of love,
When, trembling on uplifted plumes,

They leave the earth and soar above; We hear their sweet, familiar airs Where'er a sunny spot is found; How lovely is a life like theirs,

Diffusing sweetness all around! From clime to clime, from pole to pole, Their sweetest anthems softly roll,

Till, melting on the realms of air,

Thy still, small voice seems whispering there. The stars, those floating isles of light,

Round which the clouds unfurl their sails, Pure as a woman's robe of white

That trembles round the form it vei's,
They touch the heart as with a spell,

Yet, set the soaring fancy free,
And oh how sweet the tales they tell!

They tell of peace, of love, and thee!
Each raging storm that wildly blows,
Each balmy gale that lifts the rose,
Sublimely grand, or softly fair,
They speak of thee, for thou art there,
The spirit oft oppressed with doubt,

May strive to cast thee from its thought, But who can shut thy presence out,

Thou mighty Guest that com'st unsought In spite of all our cold resolves,

Whate'er our thoughts, where'er we be, Still magnet-like the heart revolves,

And points, all trembling, up to thee;
We can not shield a troubled breast
Beneath the confines of the blest,
Above, below, on earth, in air,
For thou the living God art there.

Yet, far beyond the clouds outspread,
Where soaring Fancy oft hath been,
There is a land where thou hast said

The pure of heart shall enter in;
In those far realms so calmly bright

How many a loved and gentle one Bathes its soft plumes in living light

That sparkles from thy radiant throne! There souls, once soft and sad as ours, Look up and sing mid fadeless flowers; They dream nc more of grief and care, For thou, the God of peace, art there.

CATHERINE ANN WARE and ELEANOR PERCY WARE, daughters of the Hon. Nathaniel Ware, of Mississippi, were born near the city of Natchez. After studying several years in the best seminaries of their native state, they completed their education in one of the most fashionable schools of Philadelphia, after leaving which they passed some time in travel, and became known in many brilliant circles for the vivacious grace of their manners and their fine intelligence. Their home beside the "Father of Waters" was exchang ed for one in Cincinnati, and during the residence of Judge Ware in that city they were married the eldest to Mr. Warfield, of Lexington, Kentucky, and the other to Mr. Lee, then of Vicksburg, and now of a place called Bachelor's Bend, about twelve miles from the Mississippi river.

Their first appearance in the literary world was in a volume entitled The Wife of Leon, and other Poems, by Two Sisters of the West, printed in New York in 1843. It consisted principally of fruits of desultory repose from the excitements of society-short pieces, written to wile away time, and gratify a taste for composition-without a thought that they would ever meet the eyes of strangers; and it was not until urged to do so by several friends distinguished for their abilities in literature, that they consented to the wishes of their father in giving them to the press.

The reception of these poems vindicated their publication. They were reviewed with many expressions of approval in the most critical journals, and with especial praise in The New York Evening Post and The New Mirror, conducted by two poets, of very different characters, but both destined to places among the standard authors of the age and country. A second edition of this volume appeared, under the names of the authors, in Cincinnati, in the autumn of 1848.

In 1846 Mrs. Warfield and Mrs. Lee published a new collection of their writings, under the title of The Indian Chamber and other Poems, in which there is evinced a very decided advancement in reflection, feeling and

m

art. They exhibit more readiness of epithet and imagery, from the observation of nature and the experience of life, and have more meaning and earnestness.

We have in neither volume any intimation of the respective shares of the authors in its production, but it would not have escaped the detection of the most careless readers that the poems are by different hands, of very different though perhaps not very unequal powers. Among them are many specimens of ingenious and happy fancy, of bold and distinct painting, and of tasteful, harmonious, and sometimes sparkling versification; but not a few of them would have been much better if the authors had recollected that the word "thing" can never be properly applied to a human intelligence except in expression of contempt, and that "redolent," "fraught," "glee," and some half dozen other pet phrases of poetasters, convenient enough for rhyming and filling out lines, have, from the manner in which they are commonly applied, become offensive, unless used sparingly and with the most exact propriety. Illustrations of the fault to which we refer - a fault by no means peculiar to the "Two Sisters of the West," be found in that line of The Bird of Washington, in which the soul is styled

- may

A proud, triumphant thing: and in Remorse, where the word "adored," which is as sacred to one purpose as the Hebrew characters that syllabled the highest name of the Creator, and which expresses no possible extravagance of feeling toward a human being, is used for loved, or-though this would be in very bad taste- for wor shipped.

The two volumes that have been referred to do not comprise all nor perhaps the best of the compositions of their authors. They are both experienced and successful writers of prose, and Mrs. Warfield has written a novel, that, if published under her real name, would surprise those who have formed the most favorable estimates of her powers, by its fine description, genial wit, and criticism of society and manners.

REMORSE.

THE day had died in splendor royally, Mid draperies of purple and of gold, And crimson banners waving o'er its bier; And the last yellow tints were fading fast From earth and sea, and paling in the west Into that vague, gray shadow which comes down Over the breast of Nature, as deep thought Upon the human spirit. Strangely linked With all the deeper yearnings of the soulThe secrets of the inner fane-art thou, Mysterious Twilight! thou, who didst prevail O'er Chaos with a drear and brooding weight, And hadst a name ere night and day began. Still, in thine ancient guise, thou walkst the earth, Thou shadow of the Almighty! and ca'lst up Conscience, and Thought, and Memory, that sleep Through the glad, busy day and dreaming night, In long and sad array. There lives not one O'er whom thine influence falls not mournfully; Thou art prophetic to the few who boast A happy past, and with thy shadowy hand Seemest to lift a corner of the veil That shuts their present from futurity. And to the mourning spirit thou revealest Pale, haunting faces-lost, yet loved not less Than when they knew no better home than earth, And wore a human guise. But in the soul Where lies a hidden sting of pain and wrong, Of vain regret, or, darker still, remorseThou bringst, O shadowy Twilight, brooding gloom, And dearth, and restlessness, and agony!

Within a southern garden, where the breath
Of flowers went up like incense, and the plash
Of falling fountains made a murmuring voice
Of music sweet, yet same, there paced a man
Restlessly to and fro: the lingering light
Fell on his features, pale and beautiful
As those of the old statues, and with much
Of the ideal tenderness that breathed
Around the marble, till it rivalled life-
Yet with a latent sternness, lurking still
About the august, high forehead, and the lip,
And the fine, sweeping profile, that recalled
Yet more a statue's strong similitude.

But wild and stormy changes now o'ercast
Those noble features--sick and wringing pain,
Then shuddering shame, anxiety, despair:
These, plainly as my hand hath traced the words,
Were written on his aspect; and a prayer-
Which, in its brief and utter desolateness,
Bears more of misery than any boon
A human beart may crave-oft left his lip,
Unconscious of its utterance: 66 Oh, my God,
Let me forget-or suffer me to die!"

A step was near him. Suddenly he turned,
And bent a long, sad gaze on one whose touch
Had broken the dark spell; whose white hand lay
Yet on his arm in tenderness; whose eyes
Were raised with such intensity of love. [down,
They touched the springs of tears. Then he bowed
And veiling in his hand his quivering face,
Wept silently and long; while mournfully
Watched over hum that ange minister,

Whose love alone poured balm into his wound,
And shone a star o'er the dark waste of life.
Still in that southern garden lingered they,
The pale and suffering man, and she who seemed
The genius of his fate. The stars were met
In starry conclave in their halls above,
And the moon, in the deep and quiet heaven,
Rose high amid a maze of fleecy clouds,
Toward the noon of night. Beneath a bower
Where breathed the odorous jessamine, they sat
Communing of the irrevocable past.
His voice was lifted in the solemn night
In passionate remorse: he, who had stood
At morn within the crowded council-hall,
Pouring abroad a gush of eloquence
That stirred the heart as with a trumpet-note,
That called up Feeling from its inmost cell,
And followed Motive to its hidden source,
And touched the electric chain of Memory,
Until the mighty mass became as one
Sentient and breathing soul beneath his spell,
He, the adored, the proud, the eloquent,
The stateliest amid men, now filled the hush
Of night with dark bewailings, while cach pause
Of that sad, thrilling voice, was filled by tones
Unutterably musical and soft,
Urging Love's fondest prayer:

"Be calm, mine own!
The strife was not thy seeking: thou didst bear,
(Thou, who art fearless as an eagle plumed,)
With saintlike meekness, much of taunt and wrong,
Much scorn and injury, ere they could urge
Thy hand against the man thou lovest so well-
Ay, with a brother's tenderness. Be firm;
Turn from such memories." He arose, and paced
The moonlight bower with folded arms, and head
Bowed to his breast. "They haunt me yet," he said,
That manly form, those large, dark, joyous eyes,
The stately step, the sweet, fresh, ringing laugh,
(Marion! it was a sound that had no peer,
Save at a fountain, at its freshest source,
Gushing through mountain clefts,) these, these arise,
Darkly and terribly. These haunt me still.

66

"I would forgetfulness were mine! full oft
That old wild tale of oriental lands
Comes back with all its witchery to my brain,
Fresh as when o'er its page I hung entranced
In my glad boyhood, 'neath the summer boughs.
The waters of oblivion! where are they,
Those crystal waters in their marble font?
For one deep draught I would surrender all
The eloquence, the power, the wealth, the fame,
That I have made mine own-all, all, save thee,
And go with toiling hands and hopeful heart
Forth on the waste of life! Forgetfulness-

I ask but this!" He paused, and choking back
A tide of agony, went on once more
In calmer tones: "It is not oft, mine own-
Believe me-oh! not often that my soul
Opens her prison chambers, and gives forth
Her captive anguish. Even in solitude
My habit is not this; and thou hast known,
Hitherto, from some gloomy mood alone,
Some sad, fantastic humor, some wild dream,
Whose mutterings startled thee from midnight sleep

To fearful watches-something of the spell
That binds me, as the serpent binds the bird
Helplessly in its strong and poisonous coils.
But there are times when, armed with fearful
strength,

Burst from their stony cells those prisoners pale,
Those memories that may not, will not die,
Those agonies that keep a quenchless flame
Burning within their dungeons, as of o'd
The virgins of the Sun fed, day and night,
Their fire for ages. These arise to daunt,
To taunt me wildly, and I leave the halls,
The haunts of men-even from thy presence flee,
Often to the dark forest, or the brink
Of the deep-moaning and unresting sea,
To battle with the fiend!"

Again that voice,
Clear as a silver lute, and redolent

With love and hope, filled the deep hush of pain:

66

Thy virtues, thy profound humility,

Thy charity for all, thy tenderness,

Thy genius, which on eagles' wings ascends
Above the arrows of thine enemies,

A star for men, a light for after-times

Ay, more than these, thy deep and stern remorse :
Shall not these prove atonement at the shrine
Of God, for that one deed-not all thine own,
But forced upon thee by fatality;

A sorrow, not a crime!"

"It is in vain".

He spoke as one in utter hopelessness

Marion! thy gentle sophistry is vain;

I have essayed that specious reasoning
'That would wipe out, from hands imbrued in blood,
The dark, the gory stain. Much have I striven
To call up all my wrongs, and these array
Against the moment when my hand unloosed
A spirit from its tenement of clay.

I have remembered all my injuries,

Lived o'er again our feuds; recalled his wild
And insolent insults-nay, the very blow
That maddened me.

Yet have all these failed,
As mists before the red, uprising sun,
Compared to that brief instant. I would give
Life, that once more those lips were here to heap
Their bitterest imprecations on my head;
That hand again, a portion of our mould,
That smote me, harshly, undeservedly;

That haughty heart still beating high with wrath,
O'er which the sod now presses heavily--
Or that I lay beside him in the grave!

I am not self-deluded. I am borne
By some invisible agency along

To power, to fame; and inspiration hangs
About my lips that startles me at times,
Even as the crowd is startled; and I feci
That I am changed- that with intensity
Of thought and passion, genius was aroused,
Born, like the wondrous bird of Araby,
From ashes, desolation, and from death.
A giant earthquake hath thrown up to light
The gems that sparkled in the secret mine,
But overwhelmed the blossoms that made fair
Earth's bosom. Never, never more

The earnestness, the loveliness of life,
Shall shine on me! Its fitful glare alone
Illumines my ill-ordered destiny:
And in the wild excitement of the crowd,
The clamor of the multitude, the voice
Of adulation, and the strife for fame,
I lose alone the memory of my doom.
The torchlight of existence still remains:
Its sunlight hath departed, and as flame
Consumes the aliment that feeds its life,
And self-destroyed expires-so must my soul
Perish amid its ashes.

Nay! the time

Men move by

Is near, my Marion, when this voice shall cease
To pour its bitter plainings on thine ear;
A sickness and a weariness have crept
Of late across my spirit, and a vague
And dreamy craving for reality-
For all things seem like shadows.
As forms we dimly see in midnight dreams;
And the vast crowd, with all its upcast heads,
Seems often a phantasma to mine eyes.
All but the sense of one great agony,
And that is like the sea, unslumbering-
And that is like the stars, unchangeable-
Ay, deep and constant as my love for thee,
Is that remorse!"

She clung to him, she bathed
His brow with tears. She did not speak, she knew
How vain the task to soothe such agony.
But mutely in her bleeding heart she prayed
The mood might pass, or that the oblivious grave
Might close o'er both.

They rose at last, and traced Through a dim, intricate path, where orange-boughs Made sweet the earth beneath their feet, the way To their majestic home; and through its halls And colonnades of marble, where up sprang Many a low-voiced fountain, many a shaft Of porphyry, and marble bearing up Vases of antique splendor, filled with flowers, They passed in silence and in gloom of soul, Even as those shapes that move, a restless throng, Within the halls of Eblis.-Peace be theirs!

DEATH ON THE PRAIRIE.

Ir was a morn of autumn: wide, and vast, And boundless, to the eyes of those who gazed Upon its waste of verdure, as the sea, The prairie stretched away; and through its long Luxuriant grass the breath of morning crept, Swaying its flexile blades, until they rose And fell in masses like the ocean-waves, And rendered, like those billows of the deep, The sunbeam's splendor back, for yet the dews Were on their mobile surface.

In this wide Monotony of beauty there appeared One landmark only for the weary eye, And that was but a wreathing cloud of smoke, Uprising from the fires of those who made

A temporary sojourn on that waste

Of verdure. They had paused where burst a sprire

Up from the very sod, and made its way
Quietly through the grass; a silver stream,
Narrow and winding, and almost unseen
At a few paces from its humble source.
Here had they sadly rested, for the sake
Of one whose weariness of heart and limb
Demanded such repose, and whose parched lips
Drank eagerly and gratefully their last
Refreshment from the waters of the wild.
She lay upon the rude and hasty couch
Which kindly hands had framed, that dying girl,
And gazed upon the blue, autumnal sky,
With something half ecstatic in her pale
And parted lips, and in her large blue eyes,
And in the folding of her wan, slight hands,
Clasped as in prayer.

She had besought them not
To raise between her and the firmament
Shelter or shade. It was her dying wish
To feel the breeze, the sunlight, on her brow;
For she was one, though lowly of descent,
Imbued with fine perceptions, and the high
And spiritual love of Nature long

Had made its home and altar in her heart:
She seemed not of the mould of those who hung
In watchful love around her.

It may be

That Death, the chastener, from her lineaments
Had banished all the dross of earthly thought,
And stamped the impress of the angel there.
The loveliness of that seraphic face
No marble might surpass-nor in the halls
Of princely dwellings, where the beautiful
Wear the fine delicacy of the flower,
Hath eye beheld a brow more beautiful
Than hers, the daughter of the emigrant.
The deep solemnity of hopeless grief
Reigned o'er the band of kindred wayfarers-
A silence only broken by the low

And pleading voice of one who knelt beside
The perishing girl, and clasped her chilling hands,
And wiped the dews from her transparent brow
With the devoted tenderness of despair.
Silent and stern, with folded arms, and lips
Compressed in agony, the father stood,
And gazed upon the lily of his race
Broken and crushed; and the strong, swarthy lines
Of his embrowned and manly countenance
Seemed deeper ploughed by that short space of grief
Than all its years of toil, of change, of pain.
And silent, too, the brothers grouped around,
Yet shaken in their stillness, as the pines
That bow their stately crests before the winds;
And prone on earth her youthful sister lay,
With hidden face, and low, convulsive sobs.
But, to the last, the mother faltered not:
She who had cherished to idolatry
That young, frail creature, and divided her
With an impassible devotedness

From all things else on earth. She who had erred
In the injustice of her tenderness,

And poured the vials of maternal love
A thousand-fold on one-she faltered not,
But with a bursting heart put back the tide
Of anguish and despair, and lifted up

Her soul with that already plumed for heaven,
And strove to smoothe the bitterness of death
With words of consolation, peace, and prayer,
And holy inspiration.
"Sing to me,

Kind mother; sing to me that old sweet hymn,
Which in our village church so solemnly
Welcomed each sabbath day I well believe
That, even mid the harmonies of saints,
It will return to me."

'T was difficult
To take from agony a voice for song;
Yet the devoted mother poured the strain
Of holy beauty on the dying ear,
That seemed to drink its melody with joy,
And stifled the deep groans that often strove
To pass her lips. Hers was heroic love.
Unheeded by the mourning band, a child—
A bright-haired boy-had wandered from their fires
To gather prairie-flowers, and now returned
With a rich store of fragrance and of bloom,
And with the impulse of a loving heart
Showered the rich blossoms on his sister's breast.
She turned her face to his, illumined with
A smile of most benignant tenderness,
And clasping in her own his rosy hands,
She gave into his trust a solemn charge:

64

Be true to man, to God; be staff and stay To our beloved parents; falter not

In the good path-and we shall meet again!"
Simple those words, and few: yet shall they cling
Upon his brain while Memory holds her seat,
And with their serious tenderness and truth
Charm, like a talisman, his soul from wrong.

The hours wore on, and gradually the face
Of the departing maiden more and more
Revealed the hand of the victorious king.
The strife was almost over-if, indeed,
Strife might be called that ebbing of the tide
Of pain, of consciousness, of life away.
Yet still there was a duty unfulfilled-
A prayer unuttered-and it was the last
That left the wan lips of the fainting girl,
Breathed on a mother's ear:

"When I am gone,

Take from my breast a curl of raven hair,
And mingle with it one long braid of mine-
Then send them home to him; and say I died
Peacefully-trusting he would turn away
From his dark course of passion and of sin,
And meet me there!"

She raised her hand on high:
It fell a lifeless thing-a tremor shook
Her delicate frame, as the breeze shakes the flower,
And life was gone!

They broke the sod of flowers, And made her virgin grave beside the spring Which laved her dying brow, and went their way Across the wilderness.

Nor is there aught To mark ber lone and distant resting-place; The human eye might seek in vain to trace The vestige of her last repose, amid The long, rank grass that shadows all the earthBut angels know the spot, and guard it well.