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
Such tears as those we shed above the dead,
When, one by one, the sods fall on the coffin,
And we turn from the spot with hopeless tread.
O, there are sadder things for us than dying!

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!
Our starry banner hail!
United now, in bonds of love,
Forever hush the tale,

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-
The Union cause was blest,

And brother clasped a brother's hand,
And wept on brother's breast.
But, ye whose prayers were for the blue,
Let fall a tear to-day,

For those brave, noble men who fell
While wearing of the grey.

So hail the South! so hail the North!
It is with mother's pride,
Columbia sees her darling sons,
Now peaceful, side by side.
Hail to our star be-spangled flag!
It waves to bless alway
Columbia's sons, who wore the blue
And they, who wore the grey.

LOSS.

The sunshine falls-a bounteous shower of gold,
Touching my face with such a warm caress!
Hers, in its beaming, grows so strangely cold
And wears no light of quiet thankfulness.

I wonder, had I walked her path adown,
And she this one, if it had been as well-
If one or both of us would wear a crown
Of hidden thorns to-day! O, who can tell!
-An Old Maid's Christmas.
TRUTH.

I worship Truth. He sits high on a throne
Invisible to some as spirits are-

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,
Banish the shadow of sorrow and doubt;
Have all my happiness multiplied,
And all my sorrow stricken out;

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
Could be wrought for me, at my bidding, still
I would choose to have my past as it is,
And to let my future come as it will!

I would not make the path I have trod
More pleasant or even, more straight or wide;
Nor change my course the breadth of a hair,
This way or that way, to either side.

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
Because that once I had burned my hand;
Or kept myself from a greater sin
By doing a less-you will understand;

It was better I suffered a little pain,
Better I sinned for a little time,

If the smarting warned me back from death,
And the sting of sin withheld from crime.

THE LIFE DIVINE.

ENGENDER beauty in the realm of thought,
O Muse, and give to those who love the pure
And true a voice to cheer in my song divine.

From cold and worldly eyes let now the soul
Its light withdraw, and man's vague seasons end,
While on lips of roses that forever

Bloom to the casement frail of mortal life

A whisper gently comes; and from the window
Of the soul a bird, whose plumage a wand
Of glory is, radiant in celestial

Light, to the arch of Heaven resplendent, wings
Her joyous way, to shine for ever there.

At last from pain and misadventure free,
Enters man to the meed and fruitage just
Of all his hopes and longings; and cheerful
Peace and happiness secure, which softly
Tread on down of all contented love, keep
And abide in him in the eternal
Present ever. Here, in blissful Eden,
Reclaimed, and sanctified anew, a holy

Light, mild as dawning hopes, doth shine; and o'er
The countless hills and vales, with verdure sweet,
In raiment of the virgin month of May,
And fragrant with the blossom's bloom, which woo
The soul beyond the spirit's essence, until
The senses swoon with bliss ineffable
Are ever cast its chaste and hallowed beams.
The golden fibres of the twilight air,

And the modest hills, which stand like shepherds
O'er the mild and blameless vales; the mounting
Bird, who draws her song from the Gates of Light;
The gentle rain, whose drops are spirits gray
On the merry, dancing grass; the airy
Pulse of will, which on our mental vision
Plays, the love unseen, which beds its beauty
In the eye of hope: these formed the planet Man,
Ere blushed the sunset for the gaudy day.
And from their sunlit aerie in the sky
Great hosts of doves, flashing in Aurora's rays,
And surpliced bright in all the joy that flows
From seraphs' wings thro' windows high in
Paradise,

In circle wide now float a joy untiring.
And birds now sing with voices ever new;
And what their language is, in their chirp and call,
They tell us in their trill; and on the stirring
Bars and melody of sweet song they sport,
And flash and soar, and perch on rays which shape
And hold the throne of rapture's ravished spell.
Along the vistas of the day's decree-

Light or shade where joy her bower of beauty fair
Fills with children's laughing eyes, countless harps
Of gold, by countless fingers stroked and trilled,

Awake to dance, on mead and in the dells
Of sylvan green, the violet in her purple
Robe, the primrose in her golden plumes, the lily
In her vestal white, the daisy in her dappled
Hues, and the bluebell in her nodding snood.
The lovely amaranth her baton moves

To tunes of heavenly joy and magic love.
With music sweet the trees are filled, and soft
Winds touch their foliage as the dulcet keys.
And here are close entwined and intertwined
The souls that loved on earth. A flood of joy
Swoons on a mother's heart, as to her breast,
With all pervading bliss, she holds secure,
As tender arms their gentle force can wield,
Her child, lost long to her in weeping clay.
The sorrowful maid her faithful lover
Now rejoins, and marriage bells in Paradise
Ring out their silvery cadence on the air,
And every zephyr feasts the soul's delight,
And lovers' hearts abide in lilies fair.
Temples high of nuptial bliss-bliss of Heaven's
creed

And form-exalt the soul with music sweet
And song, filling the noon of faith with all
That Heaven inspires. Husband and father
To his heart, swelling with emotion proud
And warm, the loving mother fondly takes,
And the tender child; and a blessing great
Upon them bright descends, like halos golden
Around the heads of Heaven's highest angels.
The lamps of Paradise all gently sway,
Tier above tier, on beams from seraphs' eyes,
O'er the scene ambrosial light diffusing.
No wintry breath e'er chills the sportive winds;
And beauteous May, smiling in her emerald
Robes, reigns festive queen of every dawning
Sun, jeweled with the flowery hosts that flirt
Along the mead. Each day fresh buds and
flowers-

Flowers in whose balm is a prophecy
Concealed, to the waiting soul auguring
Solace their leaves to every breath unfold,
From sun to sun. A thousand mellow moons
Their glory bright outpour along the graceful
Shade, and cast their amber wealth the leafy
Boughs among. Celestial birds, with plumage
Gorgeous laden, in gay, symphonious notes,
At night sing glory to the showering
Stars. Fountains of pearl, with doves of sapphire
And jasper for every spray, o'er flowery
Beds and lawns, and the smiling hills and vales,
Let fall the soothing unction of the blest;
And with dreams seraphic kind sleep the senses
Fill; and angels near, with gently moving wings,
Guard that sweet repose.