CHARLES JAMES SPRAGUE, a son of the preceding, has also written verses in a delicate vein of sentiment. One of these is entitled

THE EMPTY HOUSE.

"This house to let!"-so long the placard said, I went across to see

If it were dull, or dark, or comfortless,
Or what the cause could be.

The parlor was a pleasant little room;

The chambers snug and light,

The kitchen was quite neat and cheerful too,
Although 'twas almost night.

My mind was somewhat in a thoughtful mood,
So on a broken chair,

I sat me down to moralize awhile

Upon the silence there.

How many changing scenes of life, thought I,
This solitude recalls!

Joy's ringing laugh and sorrow's smothered moan,
Have echoed from these walls!

Here in this parlor, jovial friends have met
On many a winter's night!

Ripe ale has foamed, and this old rusty grate
Sent forth a cheerful light.

Here stood the sofa, whereupon has wooed
Some young and loving pair!

Here hung the clock that timed the last caress,
And kiss upon the stair!

These chambers might relate a varied tale,
Could the dumb walls fiad breath;
Of healthful slumber, and of wakeful pain-
The birth-cry and the death.

Some crusty bachelor has here, perhaps,
Crept grumbling into bed;

Some phrensied Culle desperately sought
To hide his aching head."

Some modest girl has here unrobed the charms
Too pure for vulgar view;

Some bride has tasted here the sweets of love,And curtain lectures, too.

This little studio has seen the toil

Of some poor poet's brain,

His morn of hope, his disappointed day, ́
And bitter night of pain.

Or else some well paid preacher has wrought out
His hundredth paraphrase;

Or some old bookworm trimmed his lamp, to read
The tale of other days.

And what are they to whom this was a home?
How wide have they been cast,

Who gathered here around the social board,
And sported in days past?

How many distant memories have turned
To this deserted spot!

Recalling errors and reviving joys

That cannot be forgot!

Young love may here have heaved its dying sigh,
When angry words were spoken;
Domestic tyranny may here have reigned,
And tender hearts have broken.
Perchance some mother, as she passes by,
May cast a lingering gaze
Upon the scene of many a happier hour,
The home of her young days.

And what are they who next will fill this void
With busy, noisy life?

Will this become a home of happy peace,
Or one of wretched strife?

In sober thought, I left the silent house,
And gladly sought my own;

And when I passed next week, upon the door
I saw the name of-Brown.

LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

LYDIA HUNTLEY, the daughter and only child of Ezekiel Huntley and Sophia Wentworth, was born at Norwich, Conn., September 1, 1791. Her father, who bore a part in the war of the Revolution, was a man of worth and benevolence. His wife possessed those well balanced, unobtrusive virtues of character which marked the New England lady of the olden time.

Among the happiest influences attending the childhood of their daughter, was the cultivated society of Madam Lathrop, the widow of Dr. Daniel Lathrop, and the daughter of the Hon. John Talcott, of Hartford, who held for a succession of years the office of Governor of Connecticut. Mr. Huntley, having charge of her estate, resided with his separate family under her roof, and in that fine old mansion their child was born. Her precocity was exhibited in reading fluently at the age of three, and composing simple verses at seven, smooth in rhythm, and of an invariable religious sentiment. As she grew older, she profited by the society of the distinguished visitors who sought the hospitable home; and received in addition every advantage of education which could then be obtained.

When Miss Huntley was fourteen, she had the misfortune to lose her venerable friend, who died at the ripe age of eighty-nine. She continued her studies until her nineteenth year, when she put into execution a plan she had long contemplated, of engaging in the work of instruction. Associating herself with her most intimate friend, Miss Ann Maria Hyde, who sympathized warmly in her scheme, a school was opened for young ladies, and conducted with great success for two years.

In 1814 Miss Huntley was induced to commence a select school at Hartford, under the auspices of influential relatives of her early friend, Mrs. Lathrop. Removing to that city, she became an inmate in the mansion of Mrs. Wadsworth, the widow of Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth, a lady of high intellectual and moral· worth. It was at the suggestion, and under the auspices of a son of this lady, Daniel Wadsworth, Esq., who had known Miss Huntley from her infancy, that a selection from her writings appeared in 1815. Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, the title of Miss Huntley's volume, affords a good indication to its contents, almost all of the short poems which it contains having a direct moral purpose in view. The prose essays are introduced by the remark, that they were addressed to "a number of young ladies under her care," and the writer, throughout the volume, seems to have had her vocation of teacher in view. A poem on General St. Clair, "neglected and forgotten by his country, poor and in obscurity, on one of the Alleghany mountains," shows the sympathy with patriotic and national topics which has characterized her entire literary career. The volume was well received, and led to the author's engagement as a contributor to various periodicals.

In the summer of 1819 Miss Huntley became the wife of Mr. Charles Sigourney, a thoroughly

In 1822 Mrs. Sigourney published Traits of the Aborigines, an historical poem, in five cantos. A collection of her miscellaneous poems was made about the same time in London, under the title of Lays from the West. In 1824 she published a volume in prose, A Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years Since. These were followed in rapid succession by Letters to Young Ladies and Letters to Mothers, a collection of poems* and of prose tales, and Poetry for Children. In 1836 Zinzendorff and Other Poemst appeared. The opening and chief production of the collection introduces us to the beautiful vale of Wyoming, and after an eloquent tribute to its scenery and historic fame, to the missionary Zinzendorff, doubly noble by ancestral rank and self-sacrificing labor, engaged in his missionary exertions among the Indians. We meet him striving to administer consolation by the couch of the dying chief; beneath the widespreading elm addressing the multitude on the subject of his mission, the welfare of their souls; at his quiet devotions in his tent, watched by assassins who shrank back from their purpose as they saw the rattlesnake glide past his feet unharming and unharmed, so calin and absorbed was the good man in his duty, the messengers of death returning to the grim savage prophet who had sent them on their errand, with the reply, that the stranger was a god. The poem closes with the departure of Zinzendorff at a later period from the infant city of Philadelphia, and an eloqnent tribute to missionary labor, combined with an exhortation to Christian union.

The remaining poems are descriptive of natural scenery, commemorative of departed friends, versifications of scripture narratives, or inculcative of scripture truth. A warm sympathy with missionary effort, and with philanthropic labor of every description, is manifest in all.

In 1841 Pocahontas and Other Poems appeared. The Pocahontas is one of the longest

Philadelphia 1884, 12mo., pp. 288.

+ New York, 12mo., pp. 800.

New York, 12mo., pp. 284.

(extending to fifty-six stanzas of nine lines each) and also most successful of the author's productions. It opens with a beautiful picture of the vague and shadowy repo-e of nature, which the imagination conceives as the condition of the New World prior to the possession of its shores by the Eastern voyagers. We have then presented the landing at Jamestown, and the worship in the church quickly raised by the pious hands of the colonists. The music which formed a part of their daily service of common prayer attracts the ear of the Indian, and thus naturally and beautifully brings Powhatan and his daughter on the scene. The rescue of Captain Smith is but slightly alluded to, the writer preferring to dwell upon the less hackneyed if not equally picturesque scenes before her, in the life of her heroine. We have her visit of warning to the English, her baptism, reception in England, marriage, quiet domestic life, and early death, all presented in an animated and sympathetic manner, frequently interrupted by passages of reflection in Mrs. Sigourney's best vein. The remaining poems are similar in character to the contents of the volumes already noticed.

Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands, published in 1842,* is a volume of recollections in prose and poetry, of famous and picturesque scenes visited, and of hospitalities received during an European tour in 1840. The greater portion of the "Memories" are devoted to England and Scotland. The poems are descriptive, reflective, and occasionally in a sportive vein. During this sojourn in Europe, two volumes of Mrs. Sigourney's poems were published in London. Among the

peared in 1816. In 1848 a choice edition of the author's miscellaneous poems was published, with illustrations from the pencil of Darley. In 1850, the death of her only son, and, with the exception of a daughter, only child, a youth of much promise, at the early age of nineteen, was followed by the publication of The Fuded Hope, a touching and beautiful memento of her severe bereavement. Mrs. Sigourney has since published, The Western Home, and Oher Poems, and a graceful volume of prose sketches entitled, Past Meridian.

Mrs. Sigourney has been one of the most voluminous of American female writer, having published from forty to fifty different volumes.*

Her most successful efforts are her occasional poems, which abound in passages of earnest, well expressed thought, and exhibit in their graver moods a pathos combined with hopeful resignation, characteristic of the mind trained by exercise in self-knowledge and self-control. They possess energy and variety. Mrs. Sigourney's wide and earne t sympathy with all topics of friendship and philanthropy is always at the service of these interests, while her com:nand of versification enables her to present them with ease and fluency.

INDIAN NAMES.

"How can the red men be forgotten, while so many of our states and territories, bays, lakes, and rivers, are indelibly stamped by names of their giving?"

Ye say they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave,

That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;

That 'mid the forests where they roamed
There rings no hunter's shout,
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.

"Tis where Ontario's billow

Like Ocean's surge is curled,

Where strong Niagara's thunders wake
The echo of the world.
Where red Missouri bringeth

Rich tribute from the west,
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps
On green Virginia's breast.

Ye say their cone-like cabins,

That clustered o'er the vale,
Have fled away like withered leaves,
Before the autumn gale,

• The following is a complete list of the titles of Mrs. Sigourney's works, in the order of their publication:-Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse; 1815. Biography and Writings of A. M. Hyde; 1816. Traits of the Aborigines: a Poem: 1822. Sketch of Connecticut: 1824. Poems; 1827. Biography of Females; 1929. Biography of Plous Persons: 1882. Evening Readings in History. Letters to Young Ladies. Memoir of Phebe Hammond. How to be Happy; 1833. Sketches and Tales. Poetry for Children Select Poems. Tales and Essays for Children. Zinzendorff and Other Poems: 1834. History of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; 1835. Olive Buds; 1886. Girl's Reading Book. Letters to Mothers: 1883. Boy's Reading Book; 1889. Religious Poems, Religious Souvenir, an annual, edited by Mrs. Sigourney. for 1839 and 1840. Pocahontas and Other Poems: 1841. Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands. Poems: 1842. Child's Book. Scenes in My Native Land: 1844. Poems for the Sea. Voice of Flowers. The Lovely Sisters; 1845. Myrtis and Other Sketches, Weeping Willow; 1846. Water Drops; 1847. Illustrated Poems; 1848. Whisper to a Bride: 1849. Letters to Pupils; 1950. Olive Leaves. Examples of Life and Death; 1851. The Faded Hope. Memoir of Mrs. Harriet Newell Cook: 1852. The Western Home and Other Poems. Past Meridian. Sayings of the Little Ones, and Poems for their Mothers; 1854.

But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore,
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.

Old Massachusetts wears it,
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it,
Amid his young renown;
Connecticut hath wreathed it
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathed it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.
Wachuset hi les its lingering voice
Within his rocky heart,
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart;
Monadnock on his forehead hoar
Doth seal the sacred trust,

Your mountains build their monument
Though ye destroy their dust.

Ye call these red-browel brethren
The insects of an hour,

Crushed like the noteless worm amid
The regions of their power;

Ye drive them from their fathers' lands,
Ye break of faith the seal,
But can ye from the court of Heaven
Exclule their last appeal?

Ye see their unresisting tribes,

With toilso:ne step and slow,
On through the trackless desert pass,
A caravan of woe;

Think ye the Eternal's ear is deaf?
His sleepless vision dim?

Think ye the soul's blood may not cry
Fro:n that far land to him?

POETRY.

Morn on her rosy couch awoke,
Enchantment led the hour,

And mirth and music drank the dews
That freshened Beauty's flower,
Then from her bower of deep delight,
I heard a young girl sing,

"Oh, speak no ill of poetry,

For 'tis a holy thing."

The sun in noon-day heat rose high,
And on with heaving breast,

I saw a weary pilgrim toil

Unpitied and unblest,

Yet still in trembling measures flowed
Forth from a broken string,

"Oh, speak no ill of poetry,

For 'tis a holy thing."

"Twas night, and Death the curtains drew, 'Mid agony severe,

While there a willing spirit went

Home to a glorious sphere, Yet still it sighed, even when was spread The waiting Angel's wing, "Oh, speak no ill of poetry, For 'tis a holy thing."

JAMESTOWN CHURCH.

Yet, 'mid their cares, one hallowed dome they reared,

To nurse devotion's consecrated flame; And there a wondering world of forests heard, First borne in solemn chant, Jehovah's name; First temple to his service, refuge dear From strong affliction and the alien's tear, How swelled the sacred song, in glad acclaim:

England, sweet mother! many a fervent prayer There poured its praise to Heaven for all thy love and care.

And they who 'neath the vaulted roof had bowed
Of some proud minster of the olden time,
Or where the vast cathedral towards the cloud
Reared its dark pile in symmetry sublime,
While through the storied pane the sunbeam
played,

Tinting the pavement with a glorious shade,

Now breathed from humblest fane their ancient chime:

And learned they not, His presence sure might dwell

With every seeking soul, though bowel in lowliest cell?

Yet not quite unadorned their house of prayer:
The fragrant offspring of the genial morn
They duly brought; and fondly offered there
The bud that trembles ere the rose is born,
The blue clematis, and the jasmine pale,
The scarlet woodbine, waving in the gale,

The rhododendron, and the snowy thorn,
The rich magnolia, with its foliage fair,

High priestess of the flowers, whose censer fills the air.

Might not such incense please thee, Lord of love? Thou, who with bounteous hand dost deign to show

Some foretaste of thy Paradise above,

To cheer the way-worn pilgrim here below? Bidd'st thou 'mid parching sands the flow'ret meek

Strike its frail root and raise its tinted cheek,
And the slight pine defy the arctic snow,
That even the skeptic's frozen eye may sce
On Nature's beauteous page what lines she writes
of Thee?

What groups, at Sabbath morn, were hither led!
Dejected men, with disappointed frown,
Spoiled youths, the parents' darling and their
dread,

From castles in the air hurled ruthless down,
The sea-bronzed mariner, the warrior brave,
The keen gold-gatherer, graspi: g as the grave;
Oft, 'mid these mouldering walls, which nettles

LIFE'S EVENING.

"Abide with us, for it is now evening, and the day of life is
far spent."
BISHOP ANDREWS

The bright and blooming morn of youth
Hath faded from the sky,
And the fresh garlands of our hope
Are withered, sere, and dry,

O Thou, whose being hath no end,
Whose years can ne'er decay,
Whose strength and wisdom are our trust,
Abide with us, we pray.

Behold the noonday sun of life

Doth seek its western bound,
And fast the lengthening shadows cast
A heavier gloom around,
And all the glow worm lamps are dead,
That, kindling round our way,
Gave fickle promises of joy-

Abide with us, we pray.

Dim eve draws on, and many a friend
Our early path that blessed,
Wrapped in the cerements of the tomb,
Have laid them down to rest;
But Thou, the Everlasting Friend,
Whose Spirit's glorious ray

Can gild the dreary vale of death,
Abide with us, we pray.

THE EARLY BLUE-BIRD.

Blue-bird! on yon leafless tree,
Dost thou carol thus to me,
"Spring is coming! Spring is here!"
Say'st thou so, my birdie dear?
What is that in misty shroud
Stealing from the darkened cloud?
Lo! the snow-flake's gathering mound
Settles o'er the whitened ground,
Yet thou singest, blithe and clear,
"Spring is coming! Spring is here'"

Strik'st thou not too bold a strain?
Winds are piping o'er the plain,
Clouds are sweeping o'er the sky,
With a black and threatening eye;
Urchins by the frozen rill
Wrap their mantles closer still;
Yo.. poor man, with doublet old,
Doth he shiver at the cold?
Hath he not a nose of blue?
Tell me, birdling-tell me true!

Spring's a maid of mirth and glee,
Rosy wreaths and revelry;
Hast thou wooed some winged love
To a nest in verdant grove?
Sung to her of greenwood bower,
Sunny skies that never lower?
Lured her with thy promise fair,
Of a lot that ne'er knows care?
Prithee, bird in coat of blue,
Though a lover-tell her true.

Ask her, if when storms are long,
She can sing a cheerful song!
When the rude winds rock the tree,
If she'll closer cling to thee?
Then, the blasts that sweep the sky,
Unappalled shall pass thee by;
Though thy curtained chamber show,
Siftings of untimely snow,
Warm and glad thy heart shall be,
Love shall make it spring for thee.