BELLA FRENCH SWISHER. ELLA FRENCH SWISHER was born at Tren BELLA ton, Dade county, Georgia, about forty-five years ago; on her mother's side she is related to Generals Jacob Brown and Henry Lee, of Revolutionary fame. Her grandfather, Capt. William Lee, commanded the first passenger boat that made the tour of the Great Lakes. Her father was an architect and inventor, of considerable renown, who was unfortunately stripped of quite a fortune by the great overflow of the Mississippi river in 1851; and three years later he started for England to recover some portion of his mother's estate, but was lost at sea, or supposed to have been, as he was never heard of thereafter. Then came, for the family, weary years of battle with want. Before Bella was fourteen, she sewed from early morn till lights grew dim, at shirt making, to keep herself and loved ones from starvation. Being obliged to leave school, she pursued her studies at night, with her books before her while she worked. Finally she went north with relatives. A sister died, then a brother in the first flush of manhood fell in the war, fighting for the Union, and a few months later the mother followed him. Bella taught a little school, and by economy saved enough money to enable her to attend a course at the Iowa University, which, in a measure, fitted her for her destined work. She was born a poet. It is said "she made rhymes before she could speak plain, and played at writing stories before she could form a letter." In 1867, Brick Pomeroy, recognizing her genius, in a short story sent him, employed her on the Daily LaCrosse Democrat. Two years later she started The Western Progress, a weekly newspaper at Brownsville, Minnesota, which she owned, and edited for two years, and then sold to take a position on the editorial staff of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. She was editor of the first literary magazine in Minnesota, The Busy West, also editor of the St. Paul Chronotype. In 1874 she started the American Sketch Book, an eighty-page historical. magazine, at LaCrosse, Wisconsin, which, on account of ill health, she removed to Texas in 1877. During the same year, 1877, she was associate editor of the Texas New Yorker published at Galveston. In October, 1878, she was married to Col. Jno. M. Swisher of Austin, Texas. In 1882, on account of family cares and sickness, she was obliged to suspend the Sketch Book. She has studied painting under some of the best American artists, and paints landscapes and portraits that command admiration. A sort of universal genius, she cooks a dinner, makes a dress, nails up a broken fence, harnesses her horses for a drive, edits a paper, writes a story, and then entertains with her verses in the afternoon. She Out in the busy world, perhaps no more to meet them, Their paths and mine, I know, must be apart; No wonder, then, that my weak soul should sicken, And that a dreary pain should pierce my heart. Forevermore, perhaps, beside home's altar At morn and eve, a vacant place will be; And when upon the path of life I falter, O, who will cheer and guide and strengthen me! Sad, sad I am to-night. My soul is weeping Yes, sadder things than clossing glassy eyes, When some loved one in death's embrace is lying;'Tis when we put aside what most we prize. Farewell, dear ones. May God's sweet angel guide you To blooming paths, where skies are always clear! O, if a prayer of mine had power to bless you, Then what a world of joy would crown each year! Farewell! Farewell! This world is full of sadness, And of wrecked hopes, and joys, and wasted lives; O, happy he who keeps its faith and gladness, And all its bitter, blighting storms survives. RECONCILIATION. HAIL to the North! hail to the South! How brothers fought in days gone by; For both were leal and trueColumbia's sons who wore the grey And they who wore the blue. Unthinking, rash, both went to war, For what each deemed was just, And fair Columbia bowed her head Down to the very dust. Speak softly, ye who wore the grey, As loving brothers do, Of those, who lost their precious lives, While wearing of the blue. In union there is ever strength- And brother clasped a brother's hand, For those brave, noble men who fell So hail the South! so hail the North! LOSS. The sunshine falls-a bounteous shower of gold, I wonder, had I walked her path adown, I worship Truth. He sits high on a throne A presence that to many is unknown, To others gleaming like a distant star. All powerful and infinite is He; All conquering, as well, we oft are told. He is the beauty of the universe to me, I search for him as misers do for gold, And see Him, as a mirage, seen in desert lands, Receding from my longing gaze and reaching hands. -Truth. SINGLE POEMS. A WOMAN'S CONCLUSIONS. I SAID, if I might go back again To the very hour and place of my birth; Might have my life whatever I choose, And live it in any part of the earth; Put perfect sunshine into my sky, If I could have known in the years now gone, The best that a woman comes to know; Could have had what will make her blest, Or whatever she thinks will make her so; Have found the highest and purest bliss That the bridal-wreath and ring inclose; And gained the one out of all the world, That my heart as well as my reason chose: And if this had been, and I stood to-night By my children, lying asleep in their beds And could count in my prayers, for a rosary, The shining row of their golden heads; Yea! I said, if a miracle such as this I would not make the path I have trod My past is mine, and I take it all; Its weakness-its folly, if you please; Nay, even my sins, if you come to that, May have been my helps, not hindrances! If I saved my body from the flames It was better I suffered a little pain, If the smarting warned me back from death, THE LIFE DIVINE. ENGENDER beauty in the realm of thought, From cold and worldly eyes let now the soul Bloom to the casement frail of mortal life A whisper gently comes; and from the window Light, to the arch of Heaven resplendent, wings At last from pain and misadventure free, Light, mild as dawning hopes, doth shine; and o'er And the modest hills, which stand like shepherds In circle wide now float a joy untiring. Light or shade where joy her bower of beauty fair Awake to dance, on mead and in the dells To tunes of heavenly joy and magic love. And form-exalt the soul with music sweet Flowers in whose balm is a prophecy |