old it seemed
To speak of the angel near,--
My heart went after the snowy form.
For its parents I breathed a prayer:
"Only a baby!" ah, the weary day
And the sleepless night,
The feverish longing--the aching heart--
For the baby gone from sight!

"Only a baby!" the heart sobs out,
What hopes lie shatter'd here,
The broken bud--the tiny frame,
An angel hovering near.
"Only a baby!"--the years creep by--
'Twill ever be, tho' locks be gray;
Growing no older--only their babe;
As years before it passed away.

TO HELEN,

ON WRITING A SECOND TIME IN HER ALBUM.

You plucked a grey hair from my head,
To-day, as you stood near me:
There's plenty more, that are deftly hid
By wavy crimps,--I fear me.
'Tis many years since last I wrote,
With fun, and spirits plenty;
But now my fourth son has a vote,
And my babe's not far from twenty.
Ah! so it goes; old time strides on,
Nor cares for years, and worries,
But knocks us here; and hits us there,
As past us quick he hurries;
We still are friends, and have our fun,
In spite of years, and trouble;
We've planted, reaped, and had our day.
And now we're in the stubble.

RACHEL ELIZABETH PATTERSON.

Rachel Elizabeth Patterson, better known as Lizzie Patterson, is the
daughter of William Patterson and Sarah (Catts) Patterson, and was born
in Port Deposit, February 2, 1820. She is also the granddaughter of an
Englishman who settled on Taylor's Island, in Chesapeake Bay, where he
owned considerable property, which by some means seems to have been lost
by his family.

Her father at one time kept a clothing store in Port Deposit, where he
died when the subject of this sketch was quite young, leaving a family
of helpless children, who were soon scattered among strangers. Elizabeth
was placed in a family residing a short distance south of the village of
Rising Sun. While in this family she was seized with a violent illness,
which confined her to bed for many months and from which she arose a
cripple and a sufferer for life.

Her poetic talent began to manifest itself in those early days of
suffering, and during subsequent years of confinement she found solace
and recreation by composing her "Songs in Affliction," which about
thirty years ago, in accordance with the advice of her friends, she
published in a small volume bearing that name. The first edition
consisted of eight hundred, and was so well received as to warrant the
pub