LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. MRS. SIGOURNEY, formerly Miss Lydia Huntley, was born in Norwich, Connecticut, about the year 1794, and in 1819 was married to Mr. Charles Sigourney, an opulent merchant of Hartford, in which city she now resides. She began to write verses at a very early age, and in 1815 gave to the press her first book, under the title of "Moral Pieces." She has since published six or seven volumes in verse, and about as many in prose. "The Aborigines," her longest poeri, appeared anonymously, at Cambridge, and attracted but little attention. During a visit which she made to Europe in 1840-41, a selection from her poetical writings was printed in London, and soon after her return, in 1842, the most finished and sustained of her longer poems, "Pocahontas," was published in a volume with some minor pieces, in New York. Among her prose works are "Connecticut Forty Years Since," ," "Letters to Young Ladies," "Letters to Mothers," “Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands," "Scenes in My Native Land," and Myrtis, and other Sketchings," the last of which appeared in the fall of 1846. In a reviewal of the poems of Mrs. Sigourney, published by the late Hon. Alexander H. Everett, this accomplished critic remarks that "they commonly 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 in nature. Love and religion are the unvarying elements of her song. This is saying, in other words, that the substance of her poetry is of the very highest order. If her powers of expression were equal to the purity and elevation of her habits of thought and feeling, she would be a female Milton, or a Christian Pindar." A full and splendidly illustrated edition of the Poetical Works of Mrs. Sigourney, has just been published by Carey & Hart, of Philadelphia. 66 BARZILLAI THE GILEADITE. Let me be buried by the grave of my father and of my mother."-2 Sam. xix. 37. SON of Jesse!-let me go, Why should princely honors stay me?— Where the streams of Gilead flow, Where the light first met mine eye, Thither would I turn and die ; Where my parents' ashes lie, King of Israel !-bid them lay me. Bury me near my sire revered, Whose feet in righteous paths so firmly trod, Who early taught my soul with awe Majestic as a God: O! when his sacred dust The cerements of the tomb shall burst, Where angel-hosts resplendent shine, Jehovah-Lord of hosts, the glory shall be thine. Cold age upon my breast Hath shed a frostlike death; The wine-cup hath no zest, The rose no fragrant breath; Music from my ear hath fled, Yet still the sweet tone lingereth there. The blessing that my mother shed Upon my evening prayer. Dim is my wasted eye To all that beauty brings, The brow of grace-the form of symmetry Are half-forgotten things; Yet one bright hue is vivid still, A mother's holy smile, that soothed my sharpest ill. Memory, with traitor-tread Methinks, doth steal away Treasures that the mind hath laid Images of sacred power, Cherished deep in passion's hour, Faintly now my bosom stir: Good and evil like a dream Half obscured and shadowy seem, Yet with a changeless love my soul remembereth her, Yea-it remembereth her : Close by her blessed side, make ye my sepulchre. DEATH OF AN And dashed it out. INFANT. DEATH found strange beauty on that polished brow, On cheek and lip. And the rose faded. Forth from those blue eyes There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence Forever. There had been a murmuring sound Death gazed, and left it there. He dared not steal WHEN glowing in the eastern sky, How welcome over hill and dale, Thy hallowed sunimons loads the gale, When earthly joys and sorrows end, How mournfully thy tone doth call And to the last abode of clay, Sad bell! Church bell! If to the clime where pleasures reign, Blessed bell! Church bell? THE TREE OF LOVE. BESIDE the dear domestic bower, Oft at her side a youth was seen, Her little brother climbed her knee: "Its roots are deep," the mother said; "Thy hand is weak," the father cried; 66 Too young thou art to be a bride." Serene she spake, "I look above Before the holy priest she stood, Her fair cheek dyed with rushing blood; But when the hallowed cirque of gold, Around their home its branches spread, DEATH OF A FRIEND. Ir is not when the good obey The summons of their God, That keenest anguish pours its wail, For praise should mingle with the pang It is not when the saint departs, Whose wealth was hid on high, That bitterest tears of grief should gush From sad bereavement's eye; |