better.

In 1819, she was married to Charles Sigourney, Esq., a leading merchant of Hartford, and a gentleman of education and literary taste. Henceforth her career was to be that of an author. The true interests of her own sex and the good of the rising generation stimulated her efforts in such works as Letters to Papils; Letters to Young Ladies; Whisper to a Bride; and Letters to Mothers. The guidance of the unfolding mind, impressed on her as it was, night and day, by the assiduous home-culture of her own children, called forth the Child's Book; Girl's Book; Boy's Book; How to be Happy; and a variety of other juvenile works, which have been deservedly popular.

A conviction of the importance of temperance suggested Water-Drops; of the blessings of peace, Olive-Leaves. Scenes in my Native Land portray some of the attractions of the country that she loves; and Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands give us life-pictures of a tour in Europe. Those "who go down to the sea in ships" find a companion in her Sea and Sailor; the forgotten red man is remembered in Pocahontas; the harp of comfort for mourners is hung upon the Weeping Willow; while the young and blooming may hear her Voice of Flowers among the lilies of the field. Sayings of the Little Ones, and Poems for their Mothers, express her sympathies for the helpless stranger just entering life; Past Meridian, for the wearied pilgrim trembling at the gates of the west; while Lucy Howard's Journal shows the influence of a right home-training on the duties and destinies of woman. Since she entered the field of authorship, between forty and fifty volumes, varying in size, have emanated from her pen; and she yet continues, with unflagging industry, her intellectual labors, enjoying, with unimpaired powers, that happiness of existence which sometimes brightens with age. Every thing that she has written has been pure and elevating in its whole tone and influence: other writers have had more learning, more genius, more power, but none have employed their talents for a higher end,-to make the world wiser, happier, holier. An accomplished critic3 has remarked of her poems that "they 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 nature. Love and religion are the unvarying elements

This was quite favorably noticed in the very first number of the "North American Review," May, 1815. Little did she then dream that so long a literary life was before her, a life of pure beneficence, and that forty-two years after, the same review would notice her forty-second published work (Past Meridian) in still warmer terms of praise.

It is

2" Mrs. Sigourney has never before written so wisely, so usefully, so beautifully, as in this volume. In saying so, we yield to none in our high appreciation of her previous literary merit; but, unless we greatly mistake, this is one of the Comparatively few books of our day which will be read with glistening eyes and glowing heart, when all who now read it will have gone to their graves. written by her in the character of one who has passed the meridian of life, and addresses itself to sensations and experiences which all whose faces are turned westward can understand, and feel with her. It is devotion, philosophy, and poetry, so intertwined that each is enriched and adorned by the association. Above all, it blends with the serene sunset of a well-spent life the young morning beams of the never-setting day."-North American Review, January, 1857. 3 Alexander H. Everett.

of her song. If her power of expression was equal to the purity and elevation of her habits of thought and feeling, she would be a female Milton or a Christian Pindar."

WIDOW AT HER DAUGHTER'S BRIDAL.

Deal gently, thou, whose hand hath won
The young bird from its nest away,
Where, careless, 'neath a vernal sun,
She gayly caroll'd, day by day;
The haunt is lone, the heart must grieve,
From whence her timid wing doth soar,
They pensive list at hush of eve,

Yet hear her gushing song no more.

Deal gently with her: thou art dear,
Beyond what vestal lips have told,
And, like a lamb from fountains clear,
She turns confiding to thy fold;
She round thy sweet domestic bower

The wreath of changeless love shall twine,
Watch for thy step at vesper hour,

And blend her holiest prayer with thine.

Deal gently, thou, when, far away,

'Mid stranger scenes her foot shall rove, Nor let thy tender care decay,

The soul of woman lives in love:

And shouldst thou, wondering, mark a tear,
Unconscious, from her eyelids break,
Be pitiful, and soothe the fear

That man's strong heart may ne'er partake.

A mother yields her gem to thee,
On thy true breast to sparkle rare,
She places 'neath thy household tree
The idol of her fondest care;
And by thy trust to be forgiven

When judgment wakes in terror wild,
By all thy treasured hopes of heaven,
Deal gently with the widow's child.

NIAGARA.

Flow on forever, in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty. Yes, flow on,
Unfathom'd and resistless. God hath set
His rainbow on thy forehead, and the cloud
Mantled around thy feet.-And he doth give
Thy voice of thunder power to speak of him
Eternally, bidding the lip of man

Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour
Incense of awe-struck praise.

And who can dare

To lift the insect trump of earthly hope,
Or love, or sorrow, 'mid the peal sublime
Of thy tremendous hymn?-Even Ocean shrinks
Back from thy brotherhood, and his wild waves
Retire abash'd.-For he doth sometimes seem
To sleep like a spent laborer, and recall
His wearied billows from their vexing play,
And lull them to a cradle calm: but thou,
With everlasting, undecaying tide,

Doth rest not night or day.

The morning stars,

When first they sang o'er young creation's birth,
Heard thy deep anthem,-and those wrecking fires
That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve
The solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name
Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears,
On thine unfathom'd page.-Each leafy bough
That lifts itself within thy proud domain,
Doth gather greenness from thy living spray,
And tremble at the baptism.-Lo! yon birds
Do venture boldly near, bathing their wing
Amid thy foam and mist.-'Tis meet for them
To touch thy garment's hem,-or lightly stir
The snowy leaflets of thy vapor wreath,-
Who sport unharm'd upon the fleecy cloud,
And listen at the echoing gate of heaven,
Without reproof.-But as for us, it seems
Scarce lawful with our broken tones to speak
Familiarly of thee.-Methinks, to tint
Thy glorious features with our pencil's point,
Or woo thee to the tablet of a song,
Were profanation.

Thou dost make the soul

A wondering witness of thy majesty;
And while it rushes with delirious joy
To tread thy vestibule, dost chain its step,
And check its rapture with the humbling view
Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand

In the dread presence of the Invisible,
As if to answer to its God through thee.

A BUTTERFLY ON A CHILD'S GRAVE.

A butterfly bask'd on a baby's grave,
Where a lily had chanced to grow:
"Why art thou here, with thy gaudy dye,
When she of the blue and sparkling eye
Must sleep in the churchyard low?"

Then it lightly soar'd through the sunny air,
And spoke from its shining track:

"I was a worm till I won my wings,

And she whom thou mourn'st, like a seraph sings: Wouldst thou call the blest one back?"

DEATH OF AN INFANT.

Death found strange beauty on that polish'd brow,

And dash'd it out.

On cheek and lip.

There was a tint of rose He touch'd the veins with ice, And the rose faded. Forth from those blue eyes There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence Alone may wear. With ruthless haste he bound The silken fringes of those curtaining lids Forever. There had been a murmuring sound With which the babe would claim its mother's ear, Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set The seal of silence. But there beam'd a smile, So fix'd, so holy, from that cherub brow,

Death gazed, and left it there. He dared not steal The signet-ring of Heaven.

ALPINE FLOWERS.

Meek dwellers 'mid yon terror-stricken cliffs! With brows so pure, and incense-breathing lips, Whence are ye? Did some white-wing'd messenger On mercy's missions trust your timid germ To the cold cradle of eternal snows?

Or, breathing on the callous icicles,

Bid them with tear-drops nurse ye?—

-Tree nor shrub

Dare that drear atmosphere; no polar pine
Uprears a veteran front; yet there ye stand,
Leaning your cheeks against the thick-ribb'd ice,
And looking up with brilliant eyes to Him
Who bids you bloom unblanch'd amid the waste
Of desolation. Man, who, panting, toils

O'er slippery steeps, or, trembling, treads the verge
Of yawning gulfs, o'er which the headlong plunge
Is to eternity, looks shuddering up,

And marks ye in your placid loveliness,-
Fearless, yet frail,-and, clasping his chill hands,
Blesses your pencill'd beauty. 'Mid the pomp
Of mountain-summits rushing on the sky,
And chaining the rapt soul in breathless awe,
He bows to bind you drooping to his breast,
Inhales your spirit from the frost-wing'd gale
And freer dreams of heaven.

CONTENTMENT.

Think'st thou the steed that restless roves
O'er rocks and mountains, fields and groves,

With wild, unbridled bound,
Finds fresher pasture than the bee,
On thymy bank or vernal tree,
Intent to store her industry

Within her waxen round?

Think'st thou the fountain forced to turn
Through marble vase or sculptured urn
Affords a sweeter draught

Than that which, in its native sphere,
Perennial, undisturb'd and clear,
Flows the lone traveller's thirst to cheer,
And wake his grateful thought?

Think'st thou the man whose mansions hold
The worldling's pomp and miser's gold
Obtains a richer prize

Than he who, in his cot at rest,
Finds heavenly peace a willing guest,
And bears the promise in his breast
Of treasure in the skies?

THE CORAL-INSECT.

Toil on toil on! ye ephemeral train,

Who build in the tossing and treacherous main;

Toil on-for the wisdom of man ye mock,

With your sand-based structures and domes of rock:

Your columns the fathomless fountains lave,

And your arches spring up to the crested wave;
Ye're a puny race, thus to boldly rear

A fabric so vast, in a realm so drear.

Ye bind the deep with your secret zone,
The ocean is seal'd, and the surge a stone;
Fresh wreaths from the coral pavement spring,
Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king;
The turf looks green where the breakers roll'd;
O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold;
The sea-snatch'd isle is the home of men,

And the mountains exult where the wave hath been.

But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark
The wrecking reef for the gallant bark?
There are snares enough on the tented field,
'Mid the blossom'd sweets that the valleys yield;
There are serpents to coil, ere the flowers are up;
There's a poison-drop in man's purest cup;
There are foes that watch for his cradle breath;
And why need ye sow the floods with death?

With mouldering bones the deeps are white,
From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright;
The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold
With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold,