The Female Poets of America

LA REVENANTE.

OH, look on me, dear one, with love and not fear:
It is quenchless affection alone brings me here.
Look on me! I come not in mystery and gloom,
With the pale winding-sheet and the hue of the tomb.
The mould of the grave casts no stain on my brow,
With the poor, sleeping ashes, my home is not now.
Look on me, thou dear one! the light of my eye
Is loving and kind as in days long gone by,
When, weeping and weary, thy head on my breast
Was trustingly laid with its sorrows to rest.
Then turn not away, for my face is the same
That oft to thy bedside in infancy came,

And a kiss was its welcome: now what can there be
To make it so fearful and dreadful to thee?

Doth the life of the spirit, so pure and so high, [eye,

Steal the smile from the cheek, or the love from the That the mortal must shrink with such palsying fear, To know that the holy and deathless are near? Oh, a far keener pang than what doomed us to part, Is to feel that my presence sends chill to thy heart! Though blissful my life as a spirit's can be, [thee; Its bright hours are swept by fond yearnings for Soft, musical waves from the Past o'er my soul, Where never again may the vexed billows roll, Are wafting emotions so hallowed, yet wild, That I leave the blest land to behold thee, my child! Thou hast called me with tears in the still, lonely And I spoke to thy spirit, but not to thy sight: [night, Thou hast dreamed of me oft by our own linden tree, When my kiss on thy cheek was the zephyr to thee! Thy life since we parted has laid down its glow, And year after year has but shed deeper snow; Whilst thou, from the stern, worldly lore of thy head, Hast turned with a heart-broken love to the dead: I knew it, far off in my shadowless sphere, [near; And I thought it might soothe thee to know I was But I would not one fear o'er thy tried spirit cast For all the deep, measureless love of the past: Farewell! Thou wilt see me no more, but the spell Of affection shall guard thee, poor trembler, farewell!

A DEATH SCENE.

And still with looks of love those soft stars glimmer
Along their pathways of unchanging light.
She slumbers still-and the pale, wasted fingers
Are gently raised, as if she dreamed of prayer;
And on that lip so wan the same smile lingers,
And still those trustful words are trembling there.
The night is done: the cold and solemn dawning
With stately tread goes up the eastern sky;
But vain its power, and vain the pomp of morning,
To lift the darkness from that dying eye.

Yet Heaven's full joy is on that spirit beaming-
The soul has found its higher, happier birth,
And brighter shapes flit thro' its blessed dreaming
Than ever gather round the sleep of earth.

The sun is high, but from those pale lips parted,

No more those words float on the languid breath, Yet still the expression of the happy-hearted Has triumphed o'er the mournful shades of death. Thro' the hushed room the midday ray has wended Its glowing pinion to a pulseless breast: The gentle sleeper's mortal dreams are endedThe soul has gone to Him who gives it rest.

"Tis evening's hush: the first faint shades are creepThro' the still room, and o'er the curtained bed, [ing Where lies a weary one, all calmly sleeping, Touched with the twilight of the land of dread. Death's cold gray shadow o'er her features falling, Marks her upon the threshold of the tomb; Yet from within no sight nor sound appalling, Comes o'er her spirit with a thought of gloom. See on her pallid lip bright smiles are wreathing, While, from the tranquil gladness of her breast, Sweet, holy words in gentlest tones are breathing: "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." Night gathers round-chill, moonless, yet with tenMild, radiant stars, like countless angel-eyes, [der, Bending serenely, from their homes of splendor, Above the couch where that meek dreamer lies. The hours wear on: the shaded lamp burns dimmer, And ebbs that sleeper's breath as wanes the night,

DEATH LEADING AGE TO REPOSE.
LEAD him gently-he is weary,

Spirit of the placid brow!
Life is long and age is dreary,

And he seeks to slumber now.
Lead him gently-he is weeping

For the friends he can not see;
Gently-for he shrinks from sleeping

On the couch he asks of thee!
Thou, with mien of solemn gladness,
With the thought-illumined eye,
Pity thou the mortal's sadness-

Teach him it is well to die.
Time has veiled his eye with blindness,
On thy face it may not dwell,
Or its sweet, majestic kindness

Would each mournful doubt dispel.
Passionless thine every feature,
Moveless is thy Being's calm,
While poor suffering human nature

Knows but few brief hours of balm:
Yet, when life's long strife is closing,
And the grave is drawing near,
How it shrinks from that reposing
Where there comes nor hope nor fear!
Open thou the visioned portal,

That reveals the life sublime,
That within the land immortal
Waits the weary child of Time.
Open thou the land of beauty,

Where the Ideal is no dream,
And the child of patient Duty

Walks in joy's unclouded beam.
Thou, with brow that owns no sorrow,

With the eye that may not weep,
Point him to Heaven's coming morrow-
Show him it is well to sleep!

SARAH T. BOLTON.

MRS. BOLTON resides in Ohio, and has been a contributor to the Herald of Truth in Cincinnati, to the Home Journal in New York,

thors are accustomed to have meaning in and to several other periodicals whose autheir verses.

LINES,

SUGGESTED BY AN ANECDOTE OF PROFESSOR MORSE.*

DIDST thou desire to die and be at rest,

Thou of the noble soul and giant mind?
Hadst thou grown weary in the hopeless quest
Of blessedness that mortals seldom find?
Had care and toil and sorrow all combined
To bring that sickness of the soul that mars
The happiness that God for men designed,
Till thy sad spirit spurned its prison-bars,
And pined to soar away amidst the burning stars?
Perchance an angel sought thee in that hour-
A blessed angel from the world of light,
Teaching submission to Almighty power,
Whose dealings all are equal, just, and right:
Perchance Hope whispered of a future, bright
And glorious in its triumph. Soon it came:

A world, admiring, hailed thee with delight,
And learning joyed to trace thy deathless name
Upon her ponderous tomes in characters of flame.
Thou brightest meteor of a starry age,
What does the world not owe thee? thou hast
[wrought
For scientific lore a glowing page :
Thy mighty energy of mind has brought
To man a wondrous agent: it has taught
The viewless lightning in its fight sublime,
To bear upon its wing embodied thought,
Warm from its birthplace to the farthest clime,
Annihilating space and vanquishing e'en time.
Didst thou look down into the shadowy tomb,
And crave the privilege to slumber there,

* In a letter to General Morris, dated Trenton Falls, August 14, Mr. N. P. Willis relates the following curious anecdote: "Among our fellow-passengers up the Mohawk, we had, in two adjoining seats, a very impressive contrast-an insane youth, on his way to an asylum, and the mind that has achieved the greatest triumph of intellect in our time, Morse, of the electric telegraph, on an errand connected with the conveyance of thought by lightning. .....In the course of a brief argument on the expediency of some provision for putting an end to a defeated and hopeless existence, Mr. Morse said that, ten years ago, under ill health and discouragement, he would gladly have availed himself of any divine authorization for terminating a life of which the possessor was weary. The sermon that lay in this chance remark-the loss of priceless discovery to the world, and the lo-s of fame and fortune to himself, which would have followed a death thus prematurely self-chosen-is valuable enough, I think, to justify the invasion of the sacredness of private conversation which I commit by thus giving it to print. May some one, a weary of the world, read it to his profit."

Unhonored and forgotten ?-thou, on whom
Kind Heaven bestowed endowments rich and rare!
Was life a burden that thou couldst not bear?
A lesson this, to those whose souls have striven
With disappointment, sorrow, and despair,
Until they feed on poison, and are driven
To quench the vital spark that Deity hath given.
And it should teach our restless hearts how dim
And erring is our finite vision here-
Should make us trust, through humble faith, in Him
Who sees alike the distant and the near.
The cloud that seems so sombre, cold, and drear,
May hide a prospect lovely, bright, and clear:
When lightning's flash and winds are wild and high,
No radiant beam of sunlight comes to cheer;
But when the wrecking tempest has gone by,
God sets the blessed bow of promise in the sky

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH.

I DREAMED that I saw, on the fair brow of heaven,
The star-jewelled veil of a midsummer even;
I looked, and, as quick as a meteor's birth,
A beautiful Spirit descended to earth.

Her brow wore a halo of light, and her eye
Was bright as the stars and as blue as the sky;
Her low, silvery voice trembled soft as a spell,
To the innermost chords of the heart, as it fell.
One hand held a banner inscribed with "ACCORD,"
The other, the glorious Word of the Lord:
Then, softly, the beautiful vision did glide
To the palace a rich man had reared in his pride.
Through curtains of crimson the sun's mellow beam
Fell, soft as the tremulous light of a dream,
On all that was gorgeous in nature and art-
On all that could gladden the eye or the heart.
The rich man was clad in fine purple and gold,
The wealth in his coffers might never be told;
The brows of the servants that waited around
Grew bright when he smiled, and grew pale when

he frowned.

SARAH T. BOLTON.

She stood in the cell, where the death-breathing air
Was rife with the groans of the prisoner's despair,
As sadly he looked, through the long lapse of time,
To days when his soul was unstained by a crime.
She pointed away to his Father above-
She soothed him in accents of pity and love,
And said, as she severed the links of his chain,
"Thy sins are forgiven, transgress not again."
She came in her strength, and the gallows that stood
For ages, all reeking and blackened with blood,
Like a lightning-scared fiend, pointing up to the sky,
Feli prostrate to earth, at the glance of her eye.
She spoke! old earth heard, and her pulses were still:
"God's holy commandment forbiddeth to kill."
That spirit of beauty, that spirit of might, [light.
Went forth, till the earth was illumined with her
The strong one relenting, was fain to restore [poor:
The spoil he had wrenched from the hand of the
Injustice, oppression, and wrong, fled away,
Before the pure light of millennial day.

The turbulent billows of faction grew calm;
The lion laid down in the fold with the lamb;
The ploughshare was forged from the sabre and
sword,

And the mighty bowed down to the sway of the Lord.
The heathen with joy cast his idols away,
And knelt 'neath his own vine and fig tree to pray.
By every kindred, and nation, and tongue,
Glad anthems of praise to Jehovah were sung.

KENTUCKY'S DEAD."

KENTUCKY, mother of the brave!
Let solemn prayers be said,
And welcome to an honored grave
Thy loved and gallant dead.

Thy gallant dead-they come, they come !
What will thy greeting be?
The bugle note, the martial drum,
And banners waving free?

No: toll for them the solemn knell,
Let dirges sad be sung,
And be the flag they loved so well
A pall around them flung.
In other days, when freemen bled
In fearful border strife,

When savage tomahawks were red

With unoffending life

With all the ardor youth imparts,

They sought the battle plain: Those stalwart forms and noble hearts,

Came never back again.

Oh, they were missed where kindred met
In cottage homes of yore-
Flowers bloomed and died, suns rose and set,
But they returned no more.
Young hopeful hearts in sorrow pined,
Young eyes were wet with tears,
And, fondly mourning, Memory shrined
Their names for weary years.
Theirs was no common battle field,
For savage hearts decreed;
And savage vengeance there revealed
A most inhuman deed.

The bones of the Kentuckians who died under the tomahawk at the river Raisin, in 1812, were conveyed to the river shore, at Cincinnati, on the 29th of September, 1848, by an escort of Cincinnati firemen, and placed in charge of the Kentucky committee, to whom their recep tion was assigned. They were contained in a wooden box, painted black, bearing the inscription:

A grave to rest in was denied

The brave and gallant slain; And foemen left them where they died, Upon the battle plain.

"KENTUCKY'S GALLANT DEAD. January 18, 1812.-River Raisin, Michigan." The bones of these brave men were found in a common grave, which was accidentally upturned while a street in Monroe, Michigan, was being graded. The fact of the skulls being all cloven with the tomahawk, induced the workmen to make inquiry, and an aged Frenchman, a survivor of the massacre, knew them as the bones of the unfortunate Kentuckians-remembering the spot where they were buried. Information was sent to Kentucky, and that state promptly took means for their removal. The charge was devolved upon Colonel Brooke, participant in, and survivor of, that unfortunate battle.

No voice to soothe, no hand to bless,
The suffering wounded came;
But they, in all their helplessness,
Were given to the flame.
Where Raisin's sparkling waters glide
Through forest, grove, and glade,
Defending Freedom's soil, they died,
And there their graves were made--
Yes, made beneath the ancient trees,
Deep in the tangled wilds:
Their only requiem was the breeze
Amidst the forest aisles.

The moonbeams came at midnight's hour
And softly trembled there,

And angels made that lonely bower
Their never sleeping care.

And fragrant flowers, of brilliant dyes,
Bloomed o'er the silent sod,
And lifted up their tearful eyes

Like mourners to their God.

The world has changed; for many years
Have come since then and gone,
With joys and woes, and hopes and fear,
And still they slumber on.

The pleasant homes in which they grew
Are now the stranger's care:
The gay, and beautiful, and true,

And loved--they are not there.
The friends who knew their manly worth
Have passed from time away;
The children left beside their hearth
Are growing old and gray.
Another generation bears

Their ashes, sad and slow-
Another generation wears

For them the weeds of wo.
Thy gallant dead! oh, hoard thei- dust
Within thy holiest shrine:

It is a proud, a sacred trust

Their deathless fame is thine!

HANNAH J. WOODMAN.

MISS WOODMAN is the authoress of The Casket of Gems, and two or three other small volumes, and she has been for several years a 'eacher in the public schools of Boston, of

which city she is a native. Many of her po ems appeared in the miscellanies edited by her friend Mrs. Edgarton Mayo. There is no published collection of them.

THE ANNUNCIATION.

Luke i. 26-38.

SILENCE o'er ancient Judah! "Twas the hush
Of holy eve, and through the balmy air
There came a trembling and melodious gush
Of softest melody, as if the prayer

Of kneeling thousands had prevailed on high,
And angel choirs were bending to reply.

Man heard the sound of music, and arose,
And cast the mantle of despair away,
And said, "Deliverance comes, forget your woes,
There dawns on Judah her triumphant day."
But, with the solemn strain of music, passed
The hopes too flattering and too fair to last.
Not so to one, the humblest of her race-
For to her startled and astonished eye
There came a visitant of matchless grace,
Robed in a garment of celestial dye:
"Fear not, thou highly favored"-thus he sang,
While Heaven's high arches with the echoes rang.
"Fear not, thy God is with thee, and hast poured
The richest of his blessings on thy head;
And thou wilt bear a son, on whom the Lord
The fulness of his grace and power will shed:
His name shall be Emmanuel, Mighty One,
Savior of men, and God's anointed Son."

Oh, who can paint the rushing tides of thought
Which swept like lightning through the startled

mind

Of that lone worshipper, whose faith was brought Thus suddenly its utmost verge to find; It failed not, and the curtain was withdrawn Which veiled futurity's effulgent dawn. She rose with brow serene: her eyes forgot Their dreamy softness, and were upward cast, Filled with celestial radiance. Earth had not The power that glorious prophecy to blast: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, and teach The trembling lip to frame submissive speech!" Again there floated on the ambient air

That thrilling melody, while countiess throngs, Waving their golden censers, heard the prayer, Which mingled with their own triumphant songs

The vision faded in a sea of light,
And left to earth the still and holy night.

WHEN WILT THOU LOVE ME?

LOVE me when the spring is here,

With its busy bird and bee;
When the air is soft and clear,

And the heart is full of glee;
When the leaves and buds are seen
Bursting from the naked bough,
Dearest, with a faint serene,

Wilt thou love me then as now?
When the queenly June is dressed

In her robes so fair and bright;
When the earth, most richly blessed,
Sleeps in soft and golden light;
When the sweetest songs are heard
In the forest, on the hill-
When thy soul by these is stirred,

Dearest, wilt thou love me still?
When the harvest-moon looks out
On the fields of ripened grain;
When the merry reapers shout
While they glean the burdened plain
When, their labors o'er, they sit

Listening to the night-bird's lay,
May there o'er thy memory flit

Thoughts of one far, far away!
When the winter hunts the bird

From his leafy home and hower; When the bee, no longer heard,

Bides the cold, ungenial hour; When the blossoms rise no more From the garden, field, and glen; When our forest joys are o'er,

Dearest, wilt thou love me then? Love for ever! 'tis the spring Whence our choicest blessings flow! Angel harps its praises sing,

Angel hearts its secrets know. When thy feet are turned away From the busy haunts of menWhen thy feet in Eden stray, Dearest, wilt thou love me then?

SUSAN ARCHER TALLEY.

SUSAN ARCHER TALLEY was born in Han- | frequent and popular contributor to that ex
over county, Virginia, where the early years
cellent magazine.
of her childhood were passed. Her father
was descended from one of those Huguenots
who, escaping the massacre of St. Bartholo-
mew, fled to America, and settled in Virginia.
He studied law under the late Judge Robert
Taylor of Norfolk, but on account of ill health
subsequently resigned the practice of his pro-
fession, and retired to a place in the imme-
diate vicinity of Richmond, where he recent-
ly died, and where his family still resides.-
Her mother was a daughter of Captain Ar-
cher, of one of the oldest and most distin-
guished families of Norfolk.

What is most noticeable in the poems of Miss Talley is their rhythmical harmony, considered in connexion with her perfect insensibility to sound, for a period so long that she could not have had before its commencement any ideas of musical expression or poetical art. The only instance in literary history in which so melodious a versification has been attained under similar circumstances is that of James Nack, the deaf and dumb poet of New York, whose writings were several years ago given to the public by Mr. Prosper M. Wetmore. There is not in Mr. Nack's poems, however, any single composition that can be compared with Ennerslie, in grace, or variety of cadences, or in ideal beauty. This poem, without being an imitation, will remind the reader of one of the finest productions of Tennyson.

Miss Talley was remarkable for a precocity of intellect and an early development of character. Though of an exceedingly happy temperament, she rarely mingled with other children, but would spend most of her time in reading, in an intense application to study, or in wandering amid the beautiful woods and meadows that surrounded her father's residence. At nine years of age she suddenly and entirely lost her hearing, which had evidently the effect of subduing the natural joyousness of her disposition, and of producing that dreamy and contemplative tone of character which has since distinguished her. It may be said that from this period till she was sixteen her life was passed in the solitude of her chamber, where she seemed to derive from books a constant and ever increasing enjoyment. In consequence of her extreme diffidence it was not until she was in her fifteenth year that the nature and force of her talents were apprehended by her most intimate associates. A manuscript volume of her verses now fell under the observation of her father, who saw in them illustrations of unlooked-for powers, to the cultivation of which he subsequently devoted himself with intelligent and assiduous care while he lived. When she was about seventeen years of age some of her poems appeared in The Southern Literary Messenger, and, yielding to the wishes of her friends, she has since been a

Miss Talley is remarkable not only for the peculiar interest of her character, but for the variety of her abilities. She is a painter as well as a poet, and some of the productions of her pencil have been praised by the best critics in the arts of design, both for striking and original conception and for skilful execution. Her friends therefore anticipate for her a distinguished position among those wo men who have cultivated painting, and they find in her pictures the same characteristics that maik her literary compositions.

Young, and gifted with such unusual powers, she rarely mingles in society beyond the select circle of friends by whom she is surrounded. She finds her happiness in the quiet pleasures and affections of home. Her life is essentially that of a poet. Ardent in temperament, yet shrinkingly sensitive, with a fine fancy which is often warmed into imagination, and an instinctive apprehension and love of the various forms of beauty, poetry becomes the expression of her nature, and the compensation for that infirmity by which she is deprived of half the pleasures that minister to a fine intelligence.

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