the poet's world-wish,--
Cool waters at play with the gold-gleaming fish;
While cactus a mellower glory receives
From light colored softly by blossom and leaves;
And nestling alder is whispering low,
In lap of the pear-tree, with musical flow.[C]

Dark sentinel hedgerow is guarding repose,
Midst grotto and songlet and streamlet that flows
Where beauty and perfume from buds burst away,
And ope their closed cells to the bright, laughing day;
Yet, dwellers in Eden, earth yields you her tear,--
Oft plucked for the banquet, but laid on the bier.

Earth's beauty and glory delude as the shrine
Or fount of real joy and of visions divine;
But hope, as the eaglet that spurneth the sod,
May soar above matter, to fasten on God,
And freely adore all His spirit hath made,
Where rapture and radiance and glory ne'er fade.

Oh, give me the spot where affection may dwell
In sacred communion with home's magic spell!
Where flowers of feeling are fragrant and fair,
And those we most love find a happiness rare;
But clouds are a presage,--they darken my lay:
This life is a shadow, and hastens away.

MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE

In 1843 I was united to my first husband, Colonel George Washington Glover
of Charleston, South Carolina, the ceremony taking place under the paternal
roof in Tilton.

After parting with the dear home circle I went with him to the South; but
he was spared to me for only one brief year. He was in Wilmington, North
Carolina, on business, when the yellow-fever raged in that city, and was
suddenly attacked by this insidious disease, which in his case proved
fatal.

My husband was a freemason, being a member in Saint Andrew's Lodge, Number
10, and of Union Chapter, Number 3, of Royal Arch masons. He was highly
esteemed and sincerely lamented by a large circle of friends and
acquaintances, whose kindness and sympathy helped to support me in this
terrible bereavement. A month later I returned to New Hampshire, where, at
the end of four months, my babe was born.

Colonel Glover's tender devotion to his young bride was remarked by all
observers. With his parting breath he gave pathetic directions to his
brother masons about accompanying her on her sad journey to the North. Here
it is but justice to record, they performed their obligations most
faithfully.

After returning to the paternal roof I lost all my husband's p