But not the light of early morn,

Nor smile of dewy eve's return,

The rising of the summer moon,
Nor glory of the ray of noon,
Nor twilight star, nor flower nor gem,
Were lovely as the wife of Shem.

Serene and pure as thoughts that sigh
O'er scenes of half-remember'd joy,
And meek and dignified as mind
In intellectual power enshrined;

Bright as the hope which travels o'er
The realms that sin shall reach no more,

And tender as the song approved,

When sung to strains by those beloved,

Who never more, in joy or pain,

Shall meet us in this life again.

Her auburn ringlets, dense and long,
And woven in a graceful throng,

Hung o'er a brow and neck so bright
That there the shadows fear'd to light,
And, trembling, from the field withdrew,
Or melted 'mid the light it threw :
And in that eye, so meekly wild,
The language of her spirit smiled,
And seem'd to tell of truth and love,
And feelings from a world above,

As

pure and holy as might seem

The sainted soul's immortal beam,

And more than heart may ever know
Amid a life of death and woe.

And then, as if from round her form,
A pure and all unworldly charm
Still met the eye's returning glance,
Like some bright spirit of romance,-
A radiance from the power of worth
In living glory shadow'd forth,—
An imaged life, that seem'd to be
Itself an immortality.

G

But thus, though loveliness supreme
Still made her more than mortal seem,

There lived no thought within her heart
That she could light and charms impart-
Which bade a bliss celestial dawn
Around the wondering soul of man.

Simple and pure in aim and air,
Fair-but unconscious all how fair,
As in the hours, when yet a child,
She gather'd flowerets o'er the wild,
With hand as lovely in its hue

As radiance of the cloud of dew;

For she had loved, since childhood's days,

To wander in untrodden ways,—

To share the joy of heaven and earth
In thoughts and feelings, lavish'd forth
O'er all that nature brought to light
Within this land of day and night.
And thus, her being, bright and free,
In bliss unbounded seem'd to be;

Leaving her thoughts of self behind,
Amid the ecstasies of mind,

That yet were blissful, calm, and deep,

As visions of a seraph's sleep,

When lull'd by hymns of holy love

Within the paradise above.

But to that Being in the sky,
So loved, so holy, and so high,

In awful rev'rence turn'd the whole
Sublime existence of her soul:

Each thought that nature would suggest
Within her trembling, conscious breast,

Still bade her deem her spirit err'd

Unless it was to him referr'd;

And tried, by careful measure still,
At standard of the Holy Will,

Far as its law to man below

Jehovah yet had deign'd to show ;

And yet ere waters wild had been

Roll'd o'er this world, so gay

and

green,

Or she had lived, as now,

to prove

The tender bliss of wedded love,
Unto her wildly woven bower

Still would she stray at morning hour,
And while the dawning yet was dim,
Pour forth, to heaven, her holy hymn,
That thus, unheard by all below,

Would from her inmost being flow.

HYMN.

ERE yet the sun o'er the floweret bright
Has shed the glow of his early beam,

To drink the dew of departing night,

And waken the world by wild and stream, 'Neath this the bower of my virgin youth,

While sighs the breeze in the lofty tree, I will kneel me down, in my spirit's truth,

And, oh my God, I will worship thee!