match proved a very unhappy one; and after they had lived together six years, in 1818 Captain Hemans, whose health had been impaired by a military life, determined to try the effects of a southern climate, and went to Italy. Mrs. Hemans, with her five boys, repaired to her maternal roof, and the two never met again. She continued her studies in her rural retreat, acquiring several languages, and in 1819 obtained a prize of £50 for the best poem upon Sir William Wallace. In 1820, she published the "Skeptic," which was favorably noticed in the "Edinburgh Monthly Magazine." In June, 1821, she obtained the prize awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem on the subject of "Dartmoor." "The Voice of Spring," perhaps the best known and the best loved of all her lyrics, was written early in the year 1823. In the latter part of the same year, she published "The Vespers of Palermo," a tragedy, which was considered a failure; and in 1826 appeared her best poem, "The Forest Sanctuary," which was brought out in conjunction with the "Lays of Many Lands." Every successive year brought fresh proofs of her widely-extending fame. In 1828, having suffered the loss of her mother-an affliction which went down into the very depths of her soul-she removed to Wavertree, near Liverpool, and soon gave to the world "Lays of Leisure Hours," "National Lyrics," and other poems. In 1829, she made a visit to Scotland, and was most cordially received by Sir Walter Scott, Jeffrey, and other distinguished literary characters of the Scottish metropolis.3

Early in 1830, she published her volume of "Songs of the Affections," and in the month of June she accomplished a project which she had long had at heart, of making a visit to the Lakes of Westmoreland, and to the poet Wordsworth.

1 In a letter to a friend on the occasion, she thus pleasantly writes: "What with surprise, bustle, and pleasure, I am really almost bewildered. I wish you could have seen the chil dren when the prize was announced to them yesterday. Arthur sprang from his Latin Exercise,' and shouted, "Now I am sure mamma is a better poet than Lord Byron.'"

This is a tale of a Protestant convert, who fled from the persecution of his native land (Spain) to America, taking with him his wife and child. The wife, deeply loving her husband, but not a convert to his faith, exhausted with previous anxiety and sorrow, dies at sea, and the husband and child reach their "Forest Sanctuary" in the New World, where the father recounts to the son the story of his persecutions, exile, and bereavement.

In the "Edinburgh Review" for October, 1829, appeared an article on the poetry of Mrs. Hemans, from the masterly pen of Jeffrey, who, with great delicacy and discrimination, touches upon the peculiar characteristics of her style. "Almost all her poems," writes this high authority, "are rich with fine descriptions, and studded over with images of visible beauty. But these are never idle ornaments; all her pomps have a meaning, and her flowers and her gems are arranged, as they are said to be among Eastern lovers, so as to speak the language of truth and passion. This is peculiarly remarkable in some little pieces, which seem at first sight to be purely descriptive--but are soon found to tell upon the heart, with a deep moral and pathetic impression."

Of the beauty of this scenery, she thus writes: "Yesterday I rode round Grasmere and Rydal Lake. It was a glorious evening, and the imaged heavens in the waters more completely filled my mind, even to overflowing, than I think any object in nature ever did before. I could have stood in silence before the magnificent vision an hour, as it flushed and faded, and darkened at last into the deep sky of a summer's night." Her sonnet, "A Remembrance of Grasmere," written four years afterward, describes the peculiar coloring with which her imagination invested it:

"O vale and lake, within your mountain urn
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return,
Coloring the tender shawdows of my sleep
With light Elysian; for the hues that steep
Your shores in melting lustre seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit lands remote-
Isles of the blest-and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies."

On returning thence, she went to reside in Dublin, where her brother, Major Browne, was settled. She entered very little into the general society of Dublin, but devoted most of her time to the education of her children. Her health, however, was quite feeble, so that, in her own language, "the exertion of writing became quite irksome." Early in 1834 appeared her "Hymns for Childhood," which was soon followed by "Scenes and Hymns of Life," and both were noticed very favorably in the periodicals of the day. But her course of life was nearly run; a cold, taken by being out too late in the evening, terminated in a fever, and she breathed her last, without a pain or struggle, on the 16th of May, 1835. Her remains were deposited in a vault beneath St. Anne's Church, Dublin, and over her grave some lines, from one of her own dirges, were inscribed:

"Calm on the bosom of thy God,

Fair spirit! rest thee now!

E'en while with us thy footsteps trod,

His seal was on thy brow.

Dust to its narrow house beneath!
Soul to its place on high!

They that have seen thy look in death
No more may fear to die."

Though Mrs. Hemans may be inferior to some of the female poets of the nineteenth century in some particulars-to Joanna Baillie, for instance, in vigor of conception, to Caroline Bowles in simple pathos, or to Mary Howitt in fresh nature, yet, as a female writer, influencing not only the female but the general mind, considering too the different styles in which she has excelled and how much she has written, she is undoubtedly entitled to rank above all her contemporaries. This pre-eminence has been acknowledged, not only in England but in our own country. In her poetry, religious truth, moral purity, intellectual beauty, beautiful imagery, and melodious versification, all meet together: and while it addresses itself to the better feelings of our nature, it at the same time exalts the imagination and refines the taste. "Her forte," says a discriminating critic, "lay in depicting whatever tends to beautify and embellish domestic life, by purifying the passions and by sanctifying the affections; making man an undying and unquenchable spirit, and earth, his abode, a holy place."

From one who has written so much and so well it is difficult to know what to extract, and where to stop; but the following pieces will, I believe, give a pretty correct idea of her general style.

HEBREW MOTHER.

The rose was rich in bloom on Sharon's plain,
When a young mother with her first-born thence
Went up to Zion, for the boy was vow'd

Unto the Temple-service;-by the hand

In reference to the notice of the "Scenes and Hymns," she writes: "The volume is recog nized as my best work, and the course it opens out called 'a noble path.' My heart is growing faint-shall I have power given me to tread that way much farther! I trust that God may make me submissive to his will, whatever that will may be."

She led him, and her silent soul, the while,
Oft as the dewy laughter of his eye
Met her sweet serious glance, rejoiced to think
That aught so pure, so beautiful, was hers,
To bring before her God. So pass'd they on,
O'er Judah's hills; and wheresoe'er the leaves
Of the broad sycamore made sounds at noon,
Like lulling rain-drops, or the olive-boughs,
With their cool dimness, cross'd the sultry blue
Of Syria's heaven, she paused, that he might rest;
Yet from her own meek eyelids chased the sleep
That weigh'd their dark fringe down, to sit and watch
The crimson deepening o'er his cheek's repose,
As at a red flower's heart.-And where a fount
Lay like a twilight-star 'midst palmy shades,
Making its banks green gems along the wild,
There too she linger'd, from the diamond wave
Drawing bright water for his rosy lips,

And softly parting clusters of jet curls

To bathe his brow. At last the Fane was reach'd,
The Earth's One Sanctuary-and rapture hush'd
Her bosom, as before her, through the day,
It rose, a mountain of white marble, steep'd
In light, like floating gold. But when that hour
Waned to the farewell moment, when the boy
Lifted, through rainbow-gleaming tears, his eye
Beseechingly to hers, and half in fear

Turn'd from the white-robed priest, and round her arm
Clung as the ivy clings-the deep spring-tide
Of Nature then swell'd high, and o'er her child
Bending, her soul broke forth, in mingled sounds
Of weeping and sad song-"Alas," she cried,
"Alas! my boy, thy gentle grasp is on me,
The bright tears quiver in thy pleading eyes,
And now fond thoughts arise,

And silver cords again to earth have won me;
And like a vine thou claspest my full heart-
How shall I hence depart?

"How the lone paths retrace where thou wert playing
So late, along the mountains, at my side?

And I, in joyous pride,

By every place of flowers my course delaying
Wove, e'en as pearls, the lilies round thy hair,
Beholding thee so fair!

"And oh the home whence thy bright smile hath parted, Will it not seem as if the sunny day

Turn'd from its door away?

While through its chambers wandering, weary-hearted,
I languish for thy voice, which past me still
Went like a singing rill?

"Under the palm-trees thou no more shalt meet me,
When from the fount at evening I return,

With the full water-urn;

Nor will thy sleep's low dove-like breathings greet me, As midst the silence of the stars I wake,

And watch for thy dear sake.

"And thou, will slumber's dewy cloud fall round thee, Without thy mother's hand to smooth thy bed? Wilt thou not vainly spread

Thine arms, when darkness as a vail hath wound thee, To fold my neck, and lift up, in thy fear,

A cry which none shall hear?

"What have I said, my child?-Will He not hear thee,
Who the young ravens heareth from their nest?
Shall He not guard thy rest,

And, in the hush of holy midnight near thee,
Breathe o'er thy soul, and fill its dreams with joy?
Thou shalt sleep soft, my boy!

"I give thee to thy God-the God that gave thee,
A wellspring of deep gladness to my heart!
And precious as thou art,

And pure as dew of Hermon, He shall have thee,
My own, my beautiful, my undefiled!

And thou shalt be His child.

"Therefore, farewell!-I go, my soul may fail me,
As the hart panteth for the water-brooks,
Yearning for thy sweet looks-

But thou, my first-born, droop not, nor bewail me;
Thou in the Shadow of the Rock shalt dwell,
The Rock of Strength-Farewell!"

THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.

They grew in beauty, side by side;
They fill'd one home with glee;
Their graves are sever'd, far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow;
She had each folded flower in sight-
Where are those dreamers now?

One, midst the forests of the west,
By a dark stream is laid-

The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,
He lies where pearls lie deep;

He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are dress'd

Above the noble slain:

He wrapp'd his colors round his breast,

On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one-o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fann'd;
She faded midst Italian flowers-
The last of that bright band.
And parted thus, they rest who play'd
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they pray'd
Around one parent-knee!

They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheer'd with songs the hearth-
Alas! for love, if thou wert all,

And naught beyond, oh earth!

THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP.

What hidest thou in thy treasure-caves and cells,
Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious main?
Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-color'd shells,
Bright things which gleam unreck'd of and in vain.
Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea!

We ask not such from thee.

Yet more, the depths have more! What wealth untold, Far down, and shining through their stillness, lies! Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,

Won from ten thousand royal argosies.

Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful main!

Earth claims not these again!

Yet more, the depths have more! Thy waves have roll'd Above the cities of a world gone by!

Sand hath fill'd up the palaces of old,

Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry!
Dash o'er them, Ocean! in thy scornful play,
Man yields them to decay!

Yet more! the billows and the depths have more!
High hearts and brave are gather'd to thy breast!
They hear not now the booming waters roar-
The battle thunders will not break their rest.
Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave!
Give back the true and brave!

Give back the lost and lovely! Those for whom

The place was kept at board and hearth so long; The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom, And the vain yearning woke midst festal song! Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrownBut all is not thine own!

To thee the love of woman hath gone down;

Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head,

O'er youth's bright locks, and beauty's flowery crown! Yet must thou hear a voice-Restore the dead! Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee!

Restore the dead, thou Sea!