United by tenderest bond!
The one corroded with earth and care,
The other as falling snow-flakes fair;--

The one oppressed with contrition's tear,
Familiar with grief and sin,
The other with naught but the angel's face
Who ushered the human in;
The one a wrestler with Fate's decrees,
The other environed with saintly ease;--

The one acquainted with Death and change,
And with anguish faint and pale,
The other as fresh as the earliest rose
That opened in Eden's vale.
Dear Lord! that ever the blight should fall,
That sin should sully and Death appall!

THE DAUGHTER OF JEPHTHAH AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

Night bent o'er the mountains
With aspect serene;
The deep waters slept
'Neath the moon's pallid sheen,
And the stars in their courses
Moved noiseless on high,
As a soul, when it cleaveth
In thought the blue sky.

The low winds were spent
With the fever of day,
And stirred scarce a leaf
Of the green wood's array;
And the white, fleecy clouds
Hovered light on the air,
Like an angel's wing, bent
For a penitent prayer.

Sleep hushed in the city
The tumult and strife,
And calmed in the spirit
The unrest of life:
But one, where Mount Lebanon
Lifted its snow,
Slumbered not till the morn
Wakened earth with its glow.

Beneath the dark cedars,
Majestic, sublime,
That for ages had mocked
Both at tempest and Time,
In whose tops the wild eagle
His eyrie had made,
She knelt with pale cheek
In the damp, mossy glade.

The small hands were folded
In worship divine,
And the silent leaves thrilled.
In that lone forest shrine,
With the voice of the pleader,
That, earnest and low,
Was sad as the sea-shell's
And plaintive with woe.

She prayed not for life,
Though Youth's early bloom
Glowed on her fair cheek,
And recoiled from the tomb;
But a heart pure and strong,
Sublimed by its pain,--
A spirit attuned
To the seraph's bright strain.

She saw not the dark boughs
That, spectral and hoar,
With lattice-work rude
Arched her wide temple o'er;
She marked not their shadows
Gigantic and dim;
Her s