Vol. I. THE LADIES' GARLAND. ΤΟ April 15, 1837. There is a world of bluer skies, And valies bloom with fairer flowers; And forests wave with odors teeming— And all around, above, below, In heaven's prismatic light is gleaming. These rosy realms of fancy through, To form an amulet for you. And friendship's hand and love's soft fingers Of these have wreathed a mystic token; And, O, the chain that round it lingersWhile life remains, be that unbroken! Written for the Ladies' Garland. OR THE SHIPWRECK. "Here, stained and torn, a starry flag was cast; "There lay a broken helm-a shattered mast,"But oh, the saddest relic of the storm, "Yon wave conveys a seaman's lifeless form." The day had closed-the last beam was shining. Its declining rays yet lingered on the mountain-top, and threw back its fading lustre on a weeping willow, that spread its bending branches over the dwelling of Lucretia. No. 1. in which the young and amiable Mr. All was still-save the wood robin's plaintive notes, which echoed from the forest glade. Not a leaf was waved, nor a breeze curled o'er the stream. It was to me a most enchanting hour. I paused-to listen and adore. The pale moon now displayed her silver rays, as majestically she rode amidst the lamps of Heaven. I stood-spell-bound! -scarcely knowing Which most to admire, The rumbling of approaching carriages suddenly broke my meditations, and admonished me that I had lingered there quite too long. They were the wedding guests; come to share with Lucretia the felicities of the evening. The morrow dawned-the parting morning; when the young bride was to receive a father's kind blessing, and a mother's last embrace. They had floated on fortune's uneven tide—had tasted of the bitter cup of earth's affliction; and knew that they were now about to commit their lovely and only daughter, to the same uncertain winds and fickle waves. To them it was a moment of intense interest, and anxious solicitude. There was a kind of melancholy joy in that hour. The mother sighed-paleness was on her cheek. The father smiled, though a tear bedimmed his eye. Sadness was on his brow; for he had known the danger of the seas. I had just retired from the world's busy scenes to enjoy a sequestered walk amid the shades of evening, and was musing on the mutations of fortune, when first the romantic little cottage met my view. It was beautifully surrounded with ornamental plants and flowers, which she had tastefully ar- Lucretia was not so-her heart was joy, ranged and dressed with her own hands. and her step was light. Life and activity The twining ivy had crept over the walls, was in all her movements. Like the morning and decked with a beautiful green the piazzarose that wafts its fragrance on the early No. I.-VOL. I. 2 The Stranger's Grave. VOL. I. breeze, her fair forehead kissed the first || the willow's shade, told that Lucretia was beams of the morning sun, and reflected its before me. beauteous rays which gently played upon. She had lived with the companion of her her damask cheek. Hope-sweet hope-joys but a few short weeks. His employpainted to her sunny days of future joys.ment was upon the seas, and was one of Alas! how sudden and great the changes Neptune's bravest sons; he delighted to of fortune! The bright glory of the present ride upon the mountain wave, and smiled morning, only seems to deepen the gloom at the storm. But now the heavens were of the succeeding night. Full of expecta-gathering blackness-a blackness of untion, and confidence in the future, she fondly wonted gloom. Clouds of dense darkness doted upon long years of pleasure here. were rapidly hurled in different directions, With such hopes, she left the paternal roof,||and the dismal roar of distant winds foretold and settled in the beautiful village of O-, an approaching storm. on one of the great western lakes. room, His proud ship was on the wave, her It was the eve of Autumn-the shades banner gaily floating in the breeze. Night of night had curtained the earth-the chilly came on-the last night—the night of death. winds of cold November were wildly howl-The storm raged with unabated fury. On ing. I had just seated myself in the parlor, an island half covered with water, his frail and was penning a few thoughts to an absent | |bark was shattered. That night the brave friend, when a female stranger entered the William and his crew found a watery grave. and seated herself in an opposite di- His dead body was washed ashore, and rection. She sat in pensive silence, which decently buried. But no tears of grief were was only now and then interrupted by a there-it was a stranger's grave. The little deep drawn sigh; such as bereaved and group of spectators that had gathered broken hearts utter, when sorrow is too deep around, were indulging in cold conjecture to be otherwise expressed. A thousand who the stranger might be. “Is he a father?” conjectures were awakened in my mind as says one; Oh, his children! "Is he a husto the cause of her grief. It is possible, band ?" says another; Oh, who will bear thought I, she is going to visit some sick the sad intelligence to his wife! The last and dying friend-or, she has been driven || turf was just placed upon his tomb-the by poverty and misfortune, to seek a resting company were about to turn away, when a place and a quiet home in a land of strangers,||female, with a rapid step and anxious look, and is sighing for the loved ones she is approached the spot. The size, the dress, leaving-or, she is mourning the recent loss the features of the stranger were accurately of some dear relative-it may be a husband described to her. It was enough; it reached -brother-child. At length I ventured to her heart-and floods of tears told indeed ask the cause of her sadness and grief, hoping that he was a husband. The grave was that I might be able to impart some conso-quickly opened, that she might be indulged lation.-Ah! I had conjectured rightly.-with the last look of all that was dear to her Her voice faltered, as she replied, "I-I am on earth. "Yes, it is, it is, my own dear a-widow!" At the same time giving me husband!" she exclaimed, and sank upon an imploring look. O, such a look! It the earth. She had heard of the wreck, and was sorrow mantled in grief. Had I dared, through stormy winds and a rugged way, she I would have kissed away the big tear that had hastened to the shore, hoping to find rolled down her pale cheek. Yes, the cruel him yet alive, possibly clinging to some winds of heaven, and the waves of Ontario,||broken fragment of the vessel; but that had opened a grave for her husband. Here hope was vain. Oh, ye cruel winds! how she gave me a brief history of his fate. The many tears have ye caused to flow, and bare mention of the little cottage beneath hearts to bleed. Even now, in your dismal No. 1. Innocence-Spring 3 roar, methinks I hear the wild cry, the ex-||a flowering shrub whose branches a serpent piring groan of some loved one, whom ye are is shaking in his ascending folds. making the sport of your cruel rage and relentless fury. She was commended to the God of the widow, who will soon command the earth and the sea to yield up their dead. When the long lost husband, over whom a thousand seas have rolled, shall be restored. The father and child shall again be greeted with the smiles of immortal youth; where kindred spirits shall reunite-where no storms shall ever arise, and where the cheek of immortality shall never be drenched with the gushing tears of anguish. Mount Pleasant, N. J., March, 1837. Written for the Ladies' Garland. INNOCENCE. M. All of the joys of earthly pleasure, that may truly bear the name of pleasure, time will scatter in the path of the virtuous from his silken wings-all of the sorrows of departure from virtue, the grave and the sunless eternity beyond, only can reveal. A ruined female is like a once beautiful star, turned aside from the glorious path in which she rolled in music round the sun-now adrift and on fire, the wonder and terror of the silver-eyed constellations-the seducer only of those wayward lights that might have risen at first in the heavenward skies, but whose onward courses have been towards the blackness of darkness. A virtuous female, preserving her purity of thought, and increasing the charities and the generous There is a charm in innocence before which affections of her heart through every vicisistrength becomes weakness, and power be- tude and change of life, may be compared comes impotent. Beauty may dazzle-but to a star that rises indeed dimly, half seen in beauty without innocence never awes the the dusky twilight, and baptized in the dew bold intruder who would despoil the loveliest drops of the evening-but putting on the flower in the garden of God. The attain-spotless apparel of beauty, diffusing strange ment of this virtue in its full perfection, re-splendor through the admiring heavens, quires not only an irreproachable course of smiling on earth, yet attracted toward the conduct, but also a strict guardianship over kindred star of Bethlehem, and lost long bethe thoughts. The thought of beauteous fore the dawn in the intense glories of a brightand forbidden pleasure, has power to imparter and a better sphere If woman be a stain to female purity, which, if unseen by the ministering angel of humanity-what the eye of man, throws its shadow on the must she be when the heavens receive her heart, and creates fear, distrust, and a sense into their unsullied realms!-What must she of guilt, in a bosom whiter than the mountain be whom the bright immortals stoop to love snow. The greatest blessing lent to poor while she walks through earthly bowers! humanity to remind it of Eden and Heaven, should retain its freshness and its perfection of moral beauty without those secret defections of thought, which are like enemies, almost unconsciously admitted one by one, at midnight, into the strong hold of virtue. Young ladies should never presume on niding a serious defect in their principles of moral virtue. If it be known to themselves, the glance of their own eyes may betray the secret, if they feel the hidden guilt; the indescribable charm of innocence may have fled from the blooming countenance forever, or may only linger like a frightened dove on SPRING. * BY G. V. H. FORBES. The season of ethereal mildness-when the wide, deep heavens purify themselves and shake out the contractions and wrinkles of winter! It has come to us as in times past, unchanged! God has not forgotten to be gracious and faithful. And the earth obedient to the heavenly signs above, arrays her late cold bosom with green-and has placed that green only as a dark background to her more beauteous embroidery of flowers, which ere long shall intermingle with and Spring-Blanche D'Albi. Burmount the parent tint, and white and red and orange and green and violet shall be ound in the fragrant coverings of the neadows and the hills. The birds know he season of love and of song. They are but in the earliest blush of the morning. Their songs now sound with, and shape all ature's melody to an anthem of harmony, varied and measured with more than mortal kill. It is the many-tongued song of creaion which I hear rising up to the great Creator. Receive this bursting volume of praise, Oh thou magnificent Creator and Preserver, from the green earth thou hast borne safely through the tossing winter louds, like a strong ship brought from the tormy cape into the spicy Indian ocean! VOL. I. POPULAR TALES. BLANCHE D'ALBI. I have no very poetical fancies about my last earthly resting place-yet I am by no means without my prepossessions on this matter. I would fain lie down to rest under the same sod which has received the deposit of my kindred earth. It is in vain that I the poor frame shall return to corruption, argue with myself. What matters where from which its immortal inhabitant has departed?-What matters it how far we sleep asunder from those beloved in life-when it is but for the night of slumber-when, at the dawn of the eternal day, the same clarion shall awaken all at the same moment, and assemble us together from the remotest ends of the earth, and from the unfathomed depths of the great sea? It is all in vain that I thus argue with myself, and in my wiser Nature's moments strive to think thus. triumphs over the cold suggestions of reason; resistless pleading-her tender infirmity, and my heart cherishes the fond anticipation that I may be gathered in death to the sepulchre of my people. Man, whose capacious heart and searching ntellect can take in and comprehend this niversal song of homage and rejoicing, hould not be a frozen statue amidst the doring works of God. Let every heart be varm and overflowing with praise. For no Moreover, I would fain make my bed with iving creature in the air, in the fields, in the the lowly in death-I would fain be laid orest or the floods, has half the cause of decently at rest-not within the walls of my hanksgiving that human beings have. All parish church-polluting the holy temple ature seems to smile for man, and pours common burial-ground, in the midst of those with corruption-but in its outer court, the ut into his hand the fulness of her vernal of all stations, whose faces have been fafferings. The fields are green and lovely miliar to me, whether as those of friends, o his eye-the grass blooms afresh over the neighbors, or acquaintances, or as hearers of the same word, guests at the same altar raves of his ancestors-the summer har- with me, partakers of the same cup, profesests, the fruits of autumn are before him-sors of the same faith, sharers in the same he blessings of friendship are around him hopes, believers in the same resurrection. and still, after this earthly scene hath Amongst these would I lie down undistinguished, with no other monument than a hifted, another scene incomparably more plain head-stone-no other covering than the rand and beautiful spreads out and stretches || green turf. Let no cold heavy tomb be laid nterminably before him. It is the Spring f a blessed immortality. upon its soft light texture. Methinks I would not have even my grave excluded from the bright sunbeams and the blessed air, whose sweet influences are to me the elixer of life. The time hastens that religion shall fill he earth with a heavenly influence more Such are the most romantic fancies I have land and balmy than that of Spring. War, ever indulged with regard to my allotted ike the storms of winter, shall be no more. || place of sepulchre. But I will confess one The tales of hoary wrong and error shall be ehearsed at the fireside as things that have een-not as those now in existence. Death hall come calmly then, and have no sting. The sweet earth shall then invite Jesus to is second coming-and the Saviour shall ear the voice. other weak prejudice relating to it. I have committed to the earth of a London cemetery. a horror, an inexpressible horror, of being Those dungeons of death-those black, dismal, wall-imprisoned fields of corruption, more abhorrent to my feelings than the Neapolitan pits of promiscuous sepulchre, or those appalling receptacles of mortality, where the dead of the Parsees are left ex singularly beautiful, of the happiest anc gentlest nature-engaging to a very unusual degree, the darling of fond parents; the happiest maiden of her happy land, the blithest bird of her native mountains, till But why not relate at once the few simple notices which have fallen in my way, connected with the brief existence of the young stranger? They will form at best but an imperfect and very uneventful story, but such a one as found its way to my heart, and may interest those whose tastes and feelings are yet unperverted by the feverish excitement and exaggerated tone of modern fiction. posed to blacken in the sun, or to gorge the carrion birds, who gather unmolested to their accustomed banquet. A London burying ground is more horrible than these. There the stillness of death is indeed ap-|| palling, contrasted with the surrounding ceaseless roar of the living multitude-the|| stir of the vast city, pouring through all its avenues the tide of restless population. Those gloomy wall-surrounded fields of death, are not, however, the most gloomy burial-grounds contained in the metropolis. I have passed some old black looking parish churches-in the city, I think-half buried in their adjoining small crowded cemeteries -so crowded, it is frightful to think of it- Blanche D'Albi, at the time of her deelevated high above the dark narrow street cease, had been for more than a twelve-generation on generation-tier on tier-month resident in the family of Mr. Lcoffin on coffin piled-heaped up one above the other with unseemly haste-a mound of decomposed mortality, at thought of which, of the more recent deposits in particular, imagination recoils, and the heart sickens. And then those dingy tombstones, with the black, filmy, sooty pall clinging about them. Those dismal vaporous hangings! That rank black grass! Those long yellow sickly nettles! and those pale livid fungi, looking like pestilent excrescences, the horrid fruitfulness of that tainted mould! I have hurried past those dismal receptacles with averted eyes, and restrained respiration, as if from the vicinity of a pesthouse-and yet once-once indeed, I lingered long and voluntarily within the precincts of St. one of the wealthiest merchants in the city of London. She had been engaged as French governess to his four little daughters, who were also provided with an English teacher, and attended by half the masters in the metropolis. The young Swissess had been received on the most unexceptionable recommendation, as to character, connexions, and elegant acquirements, but nothing more of her private history was communicated, than that she was the only daughter of a respectable Protestant minister. That the sudden death of both her parents, occurring within a few months of each other, had left her at the age of eighteen a destitute orphan, deprived of the protection of an only brother, who, previous to the death of their parents, But I will not name the church. My visit had taken service in the Swiss corps of De was to one of its surrounding graves, to Meuron and had accompanied that regiment which I had been attracted by some affecting to India. So situated, Blanche D'Albi had circumstances which had been related to me recourse for her future maintenance to the of its poor tenant. England had afforded expedient so often resorted to, even under her that last gloomy resting-place, but she|| happier circumstances, by numbers of our was not a native of its soil; and the in-young country women. scription on the modest head-stone placed In company with several young persons over her remains, told that "Blanche D'Albi,|| from her own canton, embarked on the same born in 1801, in the canton of Zurich, Swit- || enterprise, and provided with such recomzerland, departed this life in Lombard-street,|| mendations as could be obtained to mercanLondon, in the year 1820." Oh, simple record! more eloquent, more touching, than all that poetry and sentiment could have woven into the most diffuse epitaph. So far from her country, her kindred, and her home-taken away so early, in the very bud of life, there amongst the dust of strangers, under those black walls, beneath that rank soil, those baleful weeds, lay the daughter of that lovely mountain-land, to which, doubtless, in the happy, sanguine confidence of youth, she had so often anticipated the rapturous hour of her return. All this, and more than this, was suggested to the heart by that brief inscription. But it did not tell all. It did not tell that the young creature who slept below had been || tile houses in London, or to such of their own countrymen as were already established there, Blanche bade adieu to her "own romantic land," and very shortly after her arrival in England, it was her good fortune to be engaged in the family of Mr. Lwhere her situation might with truth have been called almost enviable, compared with the general lot of young persons in the same circumstances. She shared the school-room, and the task of educating four engaging spoilt children, with an elderly English governess, to whose domineering, but not harsh temper, she willingly yielded supremacy, and was therefore treated by Miss Crawford with somewhat of the indulgent consideration she would have bestowed on |