WOMAN'S DESTINY.

"I am a woman: - tell me not of fame!
The eagle's wing may sweep the stormy path,
And fling back arrows, where the dove would die.
Look on those flowers near yon acacia tree-
The lily of the valley-mark how pure
The snowy blossoms, and how soft a breath
Is almost hidden by the large dark leaves.
Not only have those delicate flowers a gift
Of sweetness and of beauty, but the root —
A healing power dwells there; fragrant and fair,
But dwelling still in some beloved shade.
Is not this woman's emblem?
Should only make the loveliness of home -
Who seeks support and shelter from man's heart,
And pays it with affection quiet, deep,

she whose smile

And in his sickness sorrow - with an aid
He did not deem in aught so fragile dwelt.
Alas! this has not been my destiny.
Again I'll borrow Summer's eloquence.
Yon Eastern tulip- that is emblem mine;
Ay! it has radiant colors every leaf
Is as a gem from its own country's mines.
'T is redolent with sunshine; but with noon
It has begun to wither: - look within,

It has a wasted bloom, a burning heart;
It has dwelt too much in the open day,

And so have I; and both must droop and die!
I did not choose my gift:

too soon my heart,

Watch-like, had pointed to a later hour

Than time had reach'd; and as my years pass'd on, Shadows and floating visions grew to thoughts,

And thoughts found words, the passionate words of song, And all to me was poetry.

SONG.

FAREWELL! - we shall not meet again
As we are parting now!

I must my beating heart restrain-
Must veil my burning brow!
Oh, I must coldly learn to hide
One thought, all else above —
Must call upon my woman's pride
To hide my woman's love!
Check dreams I never may avow;
Be free, be careless, cold as thou!

Oh! those are tears of bitterness,
Wrung from the breaking heart,
When two blest in their tenderness,
Must learn to live - apart!
But what are they to that lone sigh,
That cold and fixed despair,
That weight of wasting agony
It must be mine to bear?
Methinks I should not thus repine,
If I had but one vow of thine.

Farewell! we have not often met,-
We

e may not meet again; But on my heart the seal is set

Love never sets in vain!

Fruitless as constancy may be,

No chance, no change, may turn from thee
One who has loved thee wildly, well, -

But whose first love-vow breathed farewell.

MONT BLANC.

"Heaven knows our travellers have sufficiently alloyed the beautiful, and profaned the sublime, by associating these with themselves, the common-place, and the ridiculous; but out upon them, thus to tread on the gray hair of centuries, on the untrodden snows of Mont Blanc."

THOU monarch of the open air,
Thou mighty temple given

For morning's earliest of light,
And evening's last of heaven.

The

vapor from the marsh, the smoke

From crowded cities sent,

Are purified before they reach

Thy loftier element.

Thy hues are not of earth, but heaven ;

Only the sunset rose

Hath leave to fling a crimson dye

Upon thy stainless snows.

Now out on those adventurers
Who scaled thy breathless height,
And made thy pinnacle, Mont Blanc,
A thing for common sight.
Before that human step had felt

Its sully on thy brow,

The glory of thy forehead made

A shrine to those below:

Men gazed upon thee as a star,

And turned to earth again,

With dreams like thine own floating clouds.

The vague but not the vain.

No feelings are less vain than those
That bear the mind away,
Till blent with nature's mysteries
It half forgets its clay.

It catches loftier impulses ;
And owns a nobler power;
The poet and philosopher
Are born of such an hour.

But now, where may we seek a place

For any spirit's dream;

Our steps have been o'er every soil,

Our sails o'er every stream.

Those isles, the beautiful Azores,
The fortunate, the fair!

We looked for their perpetual spring ·
To find it was not there.

Bright El Dorado, land of gold,

We have so sought for thee,

There's not a spot in all the globe
Where such a land can be.

How pleasant were the wild beliefs,
That dwelt in legends old,

Alas! to our posterity

Will no such tales be told.

We know too much, scroll after scroll Weighs down our weary shelves;

Our only point of ignorance

Is centered in ourselves.

Alas! for thy past mystery,
For thine untrodden snow,

Nurse of the tempest, hadst thou none
To guard thy outraged brow?
Thy summit, once the unapproached,
Hath human presence owned,
With the first step upon thy crest,

Mont Blanc thou wert dethron'd.

PORTRAIT PAINTING.

Divinest art, the stars above

Were fated on thy birth to shine;
Oh, born of beauty and of love,
What early poetry was thine?

THE Softness of Ionian night
Upon Ionian summer lay,
One planet gave its vesper light,

Enough to guide a lover's way;
And gave the fountain as it play'd
The semblance of a silvery shower,
And as its waters fell, they made

A music meet for such an hour: That, and the tones the gentle wind Won from the leaf, as from a lute In natural melody combined,

Now that all ruder sound was mute; And odors floated on the air,

As many a nymph had just unbound The wreath that braided her dark hair,

And flung the fragrant tresses round.

Pillow'd on violet leaves, which prest

Fill'd the sweet chamber with their sighs, Lull'd by the lyre's low notes to rest, A Grecian youth in slumber lies ; And at his side a maiden stands, The dark hair braided on her brow, The lute within her slender hands, But hush'd is all its music now; She would not wake him from his dreams, Although she has so much to say,