oon dispersed. I sauntered down to the landlady's, and obtained
from her the following production from the papers left by the gentleman,
whose pen, ranging from grave to gay, from lively to severe, has held
the mirror up to Nature, and given the form and pressure of his thoughts
and feelings for the benefit of the numerous and constantly-increasing
multitudes of readers of the "Oceanic Miscellany," a journal which has
done and is doing so much for the gratification and improvement of the
masses.

_A Poem from the Autocrat's Lose Papers._

[I find the following note written in pencil on the MSS.--_Reporter Oc.
Misc._]

This is a true story. Avis, Avise, or Avice, (they pronounce it
_Arris_,) is a real breathing person. Her home is not more than an hour
and a half's space from the palaces of the great ladies who might like
to look at her. They may see her and the little black girl she gave
herself to, body and soul, when nobody else could bear the sight of her
infirmity,--leaving home at noon, or even after breakfast, and coming
back in season to undress for the evening's party.

AVIS.

I may not rightly call thy name,--
Alas! thy forehead never knew
The kiss that happier children claim,
Nor glistened with baptismal dew.

Daughter of want and wrong and woe,
I saw thee with thy sister-band,
Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow
By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand.

--"Avis!"--With Saxon eye and cheek,
At once a woman and a child,
The saint uncrowned I came to seek
Drew near to greet us,--spoke and smiled.

God gave that sweet sad smile she wore
All wrong to shame, all souls to win,--
A heavenly sunbeam sent before
Her footsteps through a world of sin.

--"And who is Avis?"--Hear the tale
The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,--
The story known through all the vale
Where Avis and her sisters dwell.

With the lost children running wild,
Strayed from the hand of human care,
They find one little refuse child
Left helpless in its poisoned lair.

The primal mark is on her face,--
The chattel-stamp,--the pariah-stain
That follows still her hunted race,--
The curse without the crime of Cain.

How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate
The little suffering outcast's ail?
Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate
So turned the rose-wreathed revelle