III.

THE SISTER.

WILD as a colt, o'er prairies bounding free, The wakening spirit of the boy doth spring, Spurning the rein Authority would fling,

And striving with his peers for mastery: But in the household gathering let him see His sister's gentle smile, and it will bring

A change o'er all his nature; patiently,

As cagéd bird that never used its wing,

He turns him to the tasks that she doth share; His better passions kindle by her side;

Visions of angel beauty haunt the air:

May she not summon such to be his guide?
Our Saviour listened to a sister's prayer,

When "Lazarus, from the tomb come forth!" he cried.

IV.

THE WIFE.

THE daughter from her father's bosom goes; The sister drops her brother's clasping hand; For God himself ordained a holier band

Than kindred blood on human minds bestows.

That stronger, deeper, dearer tie she knows, The heart-wed wife; as heaven by rainbow spanned,

Thus bright with hope life's path before her glows ;Proves it like mirage on the desert's sand?

Still in her soul the light divine remains; And if her husband's strength be overborne

By sorrow, sickness, or the felon's chains, Such as by England's noblest son were worn, Unheeding how her own poor heart is torn,

She, angel-like, his sinking soul sustains.

V.

THE MOTHER.

EARTH held no symbol, had no living sign. To image forth the mother's deathless love; And so the tender care the righteous prove Beneath the ever-watching Eye Divine Was given as type to show how pure a shrine The mother's heart was hallowed from above; And how her mortal hopes must intertwine With hopes immortal; - and she may not move From this high station which our Saviour sealed When in maternal arms he lay revealed. O, wondrous power and little understood, Intrusted to the mother's mind alone, To fashion genius, form the soul for good, Inspire a Wirt, or train a Washington!

MRS. MARY NOEL MCDONALD.

SUCCESSION OF SONNETS.*

I.

JUNE.

1.

COME with thy rose-wreaths, fair and laughing June !
Fling thy rich odors upon every gale;
Bid the blue waters wake their blithest tune,
And joy and light and melody prevail.
Thou hast a store of treasures, and with thee
We look for all things lovely: butterflies

Flit like winged jewels 'neath thy sunny skies;
And roam, with tones of music, bird, and bee.
Thou art the loveliest of the sisters three,

Summer's most beauteous child! O, still delay, Fairest of months! thy parting; fondly stay, And pour thy radiant smiles on lake and lea; Bear not from earth thy blessed gifts so soon; Stay, stay thy flight, O fair and laughing June!

* Published in 1844, at New York. Mrs. McDonald has since married Mr. Henry Meigs.

II.

JUNE.

2.

I WOULD be with thee on the sunny hills,
And by the streams would linger, as they flow
With their perpetual music sweet and low;
And where, in light, leap out the shining rills,
Like chains of liquid diamonds, I would be:
Methinks 't were sweet to wander far and free,
Tempting each craggy height or sylvan shade, -
A loiterer where the mossy banks, inlaid
With nature's flowery gems, invite repose;

And, stealing o'er my brow, thy breath of balm Might lull each care my beating bosom knows,

And bid the tossing waves of thought be calm ; And I might half forget life's boding ills, Roaming with thee out on the sunny hills.