Ashes to ashes, till the glorious morn
Of resurrection. Wondering do you ask-
Where is her blessedness? Go home, ye gay,
Go to your secret chambers, and kneel down,
And ask of God. Urge your request like him
Who on the slight raft, 'mid the ocean's foam,
Toileth for life. And when ye win a hope
That the world gives not, and a faith divine,
Ye will no longer marvel how the friend
So beautiful, so loved, so lured by all
The pageantry on earth, could meekly find
A blessedness in death.

HANNAH F. GOULD.

THE great popularity of Miss Gould we consider a most encouraging omen for the lovers of genuine poetry, of that which is true in thought and natural in description. She charms by the rare merit of imparting interest to small things and common occurrences. These make up far the greater part of life's reality, and, if truth be the essence of poetry, they must be poetical. Unfortunately, but few poets have had the power or the inclination to invest the actual world with the beauty and attractiveness which has been lavished on ideal and false creations of fancy; and hence it is that their labors have been accounted idle, and their profession degraded. Passion has too often usurped the place of reason, and a selfish sensitiveness been fostered, instead of that healthful sentiment of complacency in the happiness of others, which all high exercise of the mental faculties should exalt and encourage. It is this enlarging and elevating the affections, which improves the heart and purifies the taste. And this is one important office of true poetry-such poetry as Miss Gould has written.

She also possesses great delicacy and scope of imagination; she gathers around her simple themes imagery of peculiar beauty and uncommon association—and yet this imagery is always appropriate. Then she has a very felicitous command of language, and the skill of

making the most uncouth words "lie smooth in rhyme," which the greatest poet of the age might envy. And she, not seldom, displays humorous turns of thought, and a sportive raillery which is very amusing.

Wit is a much more rare quality than wisdom in female writers. We shall not here enter into the inquiry why it is that women, who are, proverbially, quick in perception, and who are often accused of delighting in repartee and scandal, should nevertheless, when submitting their sentiments to the public, almost scrupulously avoid ridicule and satire, even when the subjects treated of seemed to justify or demand these forms of expression. But such is the fact and hence Miss Gould's sprightly wit has the advantage of appearing more original. She, however, uses it with great delicacy, and always to teach or enforce some lesson which would not disparage "divine Philosophy" to inculcate. In truth, the great power of her poetry is its moral application. This hallows every object she looks upon, and ennobles every incident she celebrates. She takes lowly and homely themes, but she turns them to the light of heaven, and they are beautified, and refined, and elevated. She brings to her God the rich treasures of her intellect, and the warm feelings of her heart. Everywhere and in every thing she sees and feels His presence; and her song rises in those "spiritual breathings," which lift the hearts of her readers, to unite with her in praise to the Lord.

The mania for melancholy and despairing poetry, which the Byronian era introduced, never found any favor in the clear, calm, sensible mind of our poetess. Her philosophy is as practical and contented as her piety is ardent. Her motto seems to have been

"The Muse should gladden the seasons,

Should strengthen the heart in pain"

and like her own, "Ground Laurel" she adds cheerfulness to every scene, however sequestered or lonely, which her fancy pictures. Truly such a genius is a blessing to the world.

Miss Gould is a native of Massachusetts, and now resides at Newburyport, housekeeper, friend and nurse of her aged father, who was a veteran of the Revolution. She did not appear before the public as a writer till her powers of mind were matured, and she has, therefore, few juvenile errors of fancy to regret.— Her poems were first published in the periodicals and annuals, from whence she has collected and issued them in two volumes. This more permanent form was demanded by their popularity-a strange thing for poetry, the booksellers would say. Her poems will be popular while truth has friends and nature admirers, and while children are readers. And what praise is sweeter to a pure, good mind than the praise of childhood, in which the heart is always given with the lips?

THE ZEPHYR'S SOLILOQUY.

THOUGH from whence I came, or whither I go,

My end or my nature I ne'er may know,
I will number o'er to myself a few
Of the countless things I am born to do.
I flit in the days of the joyous Spring,
Through field and forest, and freight my wing
With the spice of the buds, which I haste to bear
Where I know that man will inhale the air.

And while I hover o'er beauty's lip,

I part her locks with my pinion's tip;
Or brighten her cheek with my fond caress,

And breathe in the folds of her lightsome dress.
I love to sport with the silken curl

On the lily neck of the laughing girl;
To dry the tear of the weeping boy,
Who's breaking his heart for a broken toy;
-To fan the heat of his brow away,

And over his mother's harp-strings play,
Till, his grief forgotten, he looks around
For the secret hand that has waked the sound.
I love when the warrior mails his breast,
To toss the head of his snow-white crest;
To take the adieu that he turns to leave,
And the sigh that his lady retires to heave!
When the sultry sun of a summer's day
Each sparkling dew-drop has dried away,
And the flowers are left to thirst to death,
I love to come and afford them breath;
And, under each languid drooping thing,
To place my balmy and cooling wing.
When the bright fresh showers have just gone by,
And the rainbow stands in the evening sky,
Oh! then is the merriest time for me,

And I and my race have a jubilee!

We fly to the gardens, and shake the drops
From the bending boughs, and the floweret tops;
And revel unseen in the calm star-light,

Or dance on the moon-beams the live-long night.
These, ah! these are my hours of gladness!
But I have my days and my nights of sadness!

When I go to the cheek where I kissed the rose,
And 't is turning as white as the mountain snows;
While the eye of beauty must soon be hid
Forever beneath its sinking lid—

Oh! I'd give my whole self but to spare that gasp, And save her a moment from death's cold grasp!