AMELIA B. WELBY, whose maiden name was COPPUCK, was born in the small town of St. Michael's, in Maryland, in 1821. When she was about fourteen years of age, her father removed to Lexington and afterward to Louisville, in Kentucky, where, in 1838, she was married to Mr. George B. Welby, a merchant of that city.

Mrs. Welby made herself known at a very early age by numerous poetical pieces printed, under the signature of "Amelia," in the Louisville Journal, which is edited by Mr. George D. Prentice, (a gentleman deserving as much reputation for his literary abilities as for his wit,) and has been a medium for the original appearance of much of the best poetry of the West.

In 1844 a collection of her poems appeared in a small octavo volume at Boston, and their popularity has been so great that it has since passed through four or five large editions. This success must have surprised as much as it gratified the amiable and modest poet, for, writing to me in the summer of 1843, she observed in reference to a suggestion I had made to her-"My husband and friends here also desire greatly to have a collection of my little poems published, but really I am afraid they are not worth it. Many of them

THE RAINBOW.

I SOMETIMES have thoughts, in my loneliest hours,
That lie on my heart like the dew on the flowers,
Of a ramble I took one bright afternoon
When my heart was as light as a blossom in June;
The green earth was moist with the late fallen showers,
The breeze fluttered down and blew open the flowers,
While a single white cloud, to its haven of rest
On the white wing of Peace, floated off in the west.
As I threw back my tresses to catch the cool breeze,
That scattered the rain-drops and dimpled the seas,
Far up the blue sky a fair rainbow unrolled
Its soft-tinted pinions of purple and gold.
"T was born in a moment, yet, quick as its birth,
It had stretched to the uttermost ends of the earth,
And, fair as an angel, it floated as free,
With a wing on the earth and a wing on the sea.
How calm was the ocean! how gentle its swell!
Like a woman's soft bosom it rose and it fell;

were written when I was so very young, that at the sober age of twenty-two I can scarcely read them without a blush." With the same letter she sent me the manuscript of one of her longest poems, entitled Pulpit Eloquence. It is now before me, and though scarcely a believer in Mr. Poe's ingenious speculations upon "autography," I see in the elaborate neatness and distinctness of her round and regular handwriting an indication of the peculiar character of her genius, which delights in grace and repose, in forms of delicacy and finished elegance.

There are in the writings of Mrs. Welby few indications of creative power; she walks the Temple of the Muses with no children of the imagination; but her fancy is lively, discriminating, and informed by a minute and intelligent observation of nature, and she has introduced into poetry some new and beautiful imagery. Her sentiment has the relation to passion which her fancy sustains to the imagination. No painful experience has tried her heart's full energies; but her feelings are natural and genuine; and we are sure of the presence of a womanly spirit, reverencing the sanctities and immunities of life, and sympathizing with whatever addresses the sense of beauty.

While its light sparkling waves, stealing laughingly o'er,

When they saw the fair rainbow. knelt down on the shore.

No sweet hymn ascended, no murmur of prayer,
Yet I felt that the spirit of worship was there,
And bent my young head, in devotion and love,
'Neath the form of the angel that floated above.
How wide was the sweep of its beautiful wings!
How boundless its circle, how radiant its rings!
If I looked on the sky, 't was suspended in air;
If I looked on the ocean, the rainbow was there;
Thus forming a girdle, as brilliant and whole
As the thoughts of the rainbow, that circled my soul.
Like the wing of the Deity, calmly unfurled,
It bent from the cloud and encircled the world.
There are moments, I think, when the spirit receives
Whole volumes of thought on its unwritten leaves,
When the folds of the heart in a moment unclose
Like the innermost leaves from the heart of a rose.

ON ENTERING THE MAMMOTH CAVE.
HUSH! for my heart-blood curdles as we enter
To glide in gloom these shadowy realms about;
Oh! what a scene the round globe to its centre,
To form this awful cave, seems hollowed out!
Yet pause-no mystic word hath yet been spoken
To win us entrance to this awful sphere-
A whispered prayer must be our watchword token,
And peace-like that around us-peace unbroken
The passport here.

And now farewell, ye birds and blossoms tender,
Ye glistening leaves by morning dews impearled,
And you, ye beams that light with softened splendor
The glimmering glories of yon outer world!
While thus we pause these silent arches under,
To you and yours a wild farewell we wave,
For oh! perhaps this awful spot may sunder
Our hearts from all we love-this world of wonder
May be our grave.

And yet farewell! the faintly flickering torches
Light our lone footsteps o'er the silent sod;
And now all hail, ye everlasting arches,
Ye dark dominions of an unseen God!
Who would not for this sight the bliss surrender
Of all the beauties of yon sunny sphere,
And break the sweetest ties, however tender,
To be the witness of the silent splendor

That greets us here!

Ye glittering caves, ye high, o'erhanging arches,
A pilgrim-band we glide amid your gloom,
With breathless lips, and high, uplifted torches,
All fancifully decked in cave-costume;
Far from the day's glad beams, and songs, and flowers,
We've come with spell-touched hearts, ye countless
To glide enchanted, for a few brief hours, [caves,
Through the calm beauty of your awful bowers
And o'er your waves!

Beautiful cave! that all my soul entrances,
Known as the wonder of the West so long,
Oh 't were a fate beyond my wildest fancies,
Could I but shrine you now as such in song!
But 'tis in vain-the untaught child of Nature,
I can not vent the thoughts that through me flow,
Yet none the less is graved thine every feature
Upon the wild, imaginative creature

That hails you now!

Palace of Nature! with a poet's fancies
I've oftimes pictured thee in dreams of bliss,
And glorious scenes were given to my glances,
But never gazed I on a scene like this!
Compared with thine, what are the awful wonders
Of the deep, fathomless, unbounded sea?
Or the storm-cloud whose lance of lightning sunders
The solid oak?-or even thine awful thunders,
Niagara!

Hark! hear ye not those echoes ringing after
Our gliding steps-my spirit faints with fear-
Those mocking tones, like subterranean laughter-
Or does the brain grow wild with wandering here?
There may be spectres wild and forms appalling
Our wandering eyes, where'er we rove, to greet-
Methinks I hear their low, sad voices calling
Upon us now, and far away the falling
Of phantom feet.

The glittering dome, the arch, the towering column,
Are sights that greet us now on every hand,
And all so wild, so strange, so sweetly solemn—
So like one's fancies formed of fairy land!
And these, then, are your works, mysterious powers!
Your spells are o'er, around us, and beneath,
These opening aisles, these crystal fruits and flowers,
And glittering grots, and high-arched, beauteous
As still as death!
[bowers,

But yet lead on; perhaps than this fair vision,
Some lovelier yet in darkling distance lies-
Some cave of beauty, like those realms Elysian
That ofttimes open on poetic eyes;

Some spot, where led by Fancy's sweet assistance
Our wandering feet o'er silvery sands may stray,
Where prattling waters urge with soft resistance
Their wavelets on, till lost in airy distance,
And far away.

Oft the lone Indian o'er these low-toned waters
Has bent perhaps his swarthy brow to lave!
It seems the requiem of their dark-eyed daughters,
Those sweet, wild notes that wander o'er the wave.
Hast thou no relic of their ancient glory,

No legend, lonely cavern! linked with thine?
No tale of love-no wild, romantic story
Of some warm heart whose dreams were transitory
And sweet as mine?

It must be so the thought your spell enhances; Yet why pursue this wild, romantic dream? The heart, afloat upon its fluttering fancies, Would lose itself in the bewildering theme. And yet, ye waters! still I list your surging, And ever and anon I seem to view,

In Fancy's eye, some Indian maid emerging Through the deep gloom, and o'er your waters urging Her light canoe.

Oh silent cave! amid the elevation

Of lofty thought could I abide with thee, My soul's sad shrine, my heart's lone habitation, For ever and for ever thou shouldst be: Here into song my every thought I'd render, And thou, and thou alone, shouldst be my theme, Far from the weary world's delusive splendor, Would not my lonely life be all one tender, Delicious dream?

[me,

Yes, though no other form save mine might hover
In these lone halls, no other whisper roll
Along those airy domes that arch me over
Save gentle Echo's, sister of my soul,
Yet 'neath these domes whose spell of beauty weighs
My heart would evermore in bliss abide-
No sorrow to depress, no hope to raise me,
Here would I ever dwell-with none to praise me,
And none to chide.

Region of caves and streams! and must I sever
My spirit from your spell? "Twere bliss to stray
The happy rover of your realms for ever,
And yet, farewell for ever and for aye!
I leave you now, yet many a sparkling token
Within your cool recesses I have sought
To treasure up with fancies still unspoken, [broken
Till from these quivering heartstrings Death hath
The thread of thought.

HOPELESS LOVE.

THE trembling waves beneath the moonbeamsquiver
Reflecting back the blue, unclouded skies;
The stars look down upon the still, bright river,
And smile to see themselves in paradise;
Sweet songs are heard to gush in joyous bosoms,
That lightly throb beneath the greenwood tree,
And glossy plumes float in amid the blossoms,
And all around are happy-all but me!

And yet, I come beneath the light, that trembles
O'er these dim paths, with listless steps to roam,
For here my bursting heart no more dissembles,
My sad lips quiver, and the tear-drops come;
I come once more to list the low-voiced turtle,
To watch the dreamy waters as they flow,
And lay me down beneath the fragrant myrtle,
That drops its blossoms when the west winds blow.
Oh! there is one, on whose sweet face I ponder,
One angel-being mid the beauteous band,
Who in the evening's hush comes out to wander
Amid the dark-eyed daughters of the land!
Her step is lightest where each light foot presses,
Her song is sweetest mid their songs of glee,
Smiles light her lips, and rosebuds, mid her tresses,
Look lightly up their dark redundancy.
Youth, wealth, and fame, are mine: all, that entrances
The youthful heart, on me their charms confer;
Sweet lips smile on me too, and melting glances
Flash up to mine-but not a glance from her!
Oh, I would give youth, beauty, fame, and splendor,
My all of bliss, my every hope resign,

To wake in that young heart one feeling tender-
To clasp that little hand, and call it mine!
In this sweet solitude the sunny weather
Hath called to life light shapes and fairy-elves,
The rosebuds lay their crimson lips together,
And the green leaves are whispering to themselves;
The clear, faint starlight on the blue wave flushes,
And, filled with odors sweet, the south wind blows,
The purple clusters load the lilac-bushes,
And fragrant blossoms fringe the apple-boughs.
Yet, I am sick with love and melancholy,
My locks are heavy with the dropping dew,
Low murmurs haunt me-murmurs soft and holy,
And oh, my lips keep murmuring, murmuring too!
I hate the beauty of these calm, sweet bowers,
The bird's wild music, and the fountain's fall;
Oh, I am sick in this lone land of flowers,
My soul is weary-weary of them all!
Yet had I that sweet face, on which I ponder,
To bloom for me within this Eden-home,
That lip to sweetly murmur when I wander,
That cheek to softly dimple when I come-
How sweet would glide my days in these lone bowers,
Far from the world and all its heartless throngs,
Her fairy feet should only tread on flowers,

I'd make her home melodious with my songs! Ah me! such blissful hopes once filled my bosom, And dreams of fame could then my heart enthrall, And joy and bliss around me seemed to blossom; But oh, these blissful hopes are blighted-all!

No smiling angel decks these Eden-bowers,
No springing footstep echoes mine in glee-
Oh, I am weary in this land of flowers!
I sigh-I sigh amid them all-ah me!

THE OLD MAID.

WHY sits she thus in solitude? her heart
Seems melting in her eye's delicious blue-
And as it heaves, her ripe lips lie apart

As if to let its heavy throbbings through;
In her dark eye a depth of softness swells,
Deeper than that her careless girlhood wore;
And her cheek crimsons with the hue that tells
The rich, fair fruit is ripened to the core.
It is her thirtieth birthday! with a sigh
Hersoul hath turn'd from youth's luxuriant bowers,
And her heart taken up the last sweet tie
That measured out its links of golden hours!
She feels her inmost soul within her stir
With thoughts too wild and passionate to speak;
Yet her full heart-its own interpreter-
Translates itself in silence on her cheek.
Joy's opening buds, affection's glowing flowers,
Once lightly sprang within her beaming track;
Oh, life was beautiful in those lost hours,
And yet she does not wish to wander back!
No! she but loves in loneliness to think
On pleasures past, though never more to be:
Hope links her to the future-but the link
That binds her to the past is memory!
From her lone path she never turns aside,
Though passionate worshippers before her fall;
Like some pure planet in her lonely pride,

She seems to soar and beam above them all!
Not that her heart is cold!-emotions new
And fresh as flowers are with her heartstrings knit:
And sweetly mournful pleasures wander through
Her virgin soul, and softly ruffle it.

For she hath lived with heart and soul alive
To all that makes life beautiful and fair; [hive
Sweet Thoughts, like honey-bees, have made their
Of her soft bosom-cell, and cluster there;
Yet life is not to her what it hath been:
Her soul hath learned to look beyond its gloss
And now she hovers like a star between
Her deeds of love-her Savior on the cross!
Beneath the cares of earth she does not bow,
Though she hath ofttimes drained its bitter cup,
But ever wanders on with heavenward brow,
And eyes whose lovely lids are lifted up!
She feels that in that lovelier, happier sphere,
Her bosom yet will, birdlike, find its mate,
And all the joys it found so blissful here
Within that spirit-realm perpetuate.
Yet, sometimes o'er her trembling heartstrings thrill
Soft sighs, for raptures it hath ne'er enjoyed-
And then she dreams of love, and strives to fill
With wild and passionate thoughts the craving void.
And thus she wanders on-half sad, half blest-
Without a mate for the pure, lonely heart,
That, yearning, throbs within her virgin breast,
Never to find its lovely counterpart!

MELODIA.

I MET, once in my girlish hours,

A creature, soft and warm;

Her cottage bonnet, filled with flowers,

Hung swinging on her arm;

Her voice was sweet as the voice of Love,
And her teeth were pure as pearls,

While her forehead lay, like a snow-white dove,
In a nest of nut-brown curls;
She was a thing unknown to fame-
Melodia was her strange, sweet name.
I never saw an eye so bright

And yet so soft as hers;
It sometimes swam in liquid light,
And sometimes swam in tears;
It seemed a beauty, set apart
For softness and for sighs;
But oh! Melodia's melting heart

Was softer than her eyes-
For they were only formed to spread
The softness from her spirit shed.

I've gazed on many a brighter face,
But ne'er on one, for years,
Where beauty left so soft a trace
As it had left on hers.

But who can paint the spell, that wove
A brightness round the whole?
"I would take an angel from above
To paint the immortal soul—
To trace the light, the inborn grace,
The spirit, sparkling o'er her face.

Her bosom was a soft retreat

For love, and love alone,
And yet her heart had never beat
To Love's delicious tone.
It dwelt within its circle free

From tender thoughts like these,
Waiting the little deity,

As the blossom waits the breeze
Before it throws the leaves apart
And trembles, like the love-touched heart.

She was a creature, strange as fair,
First mournful and then wild-
Now laughing on the clear, bright air
As merry as a child,

Then, melting down, as soft as even
Beneath some new control,
She'd throw her hazel eyes to heaven
And sing with all her soul,
In tones as rich as some young bird's,
Warbling her own delightful words.
Melodia! oh how soft thy darts,

How tender and how sweet!
Thy song enchained a thousand hearts
And drew them to thy feet;

And, as thy bright lips sang, they caught
So beautiful a ray,

That, as I gazed, I almost thought

The spirit of thy lay

Had left, while melting on the air,
Its sweet expression painted there.

Sweet vision of that starry even!
Thy virgin beauty yet,

Next to the blessed hope of heaven,
Is in my spirit set.

It is a something, shrined apart,
A light from memory shed,
To live until this tender heart,
On which it lives, is dead-
Reminding me of brighter hours,
Of summer eves and summer flowers.

TO A SEA-SHELL.

SHELL of the bright sea-waves! What is it that we hear in thy sad moan? Is this unceasing music all thine own? Lute of the ocean-caves!

Or does some spirit dwell

In the deep windings of thy chambers dim, Breathing for ever, in its mournful hymn, Of ocean's anthem-swell?

Wert thou a murmurer long

In crystal palaces beneath the seas,

Ere from the blue sky thou hadst heard the breeze Pour its full tide of song?

Another thing with thee:

Are there not gorgeous cities in the deep,
Buried with flashing gems that brightly sleep,
Hid by the mighty sea?

And say, oh lone sea-shell!

Are there not costly things and sweet perfumes Scattered in waste o'er that sea-gulf of tombs? Hush thy low moan and tell.

But yet, and more than all

Has not each foaming wave in fury tossed
O'er earth's most beautiful, the brave, the lost,
Like a dark funeral pall?

'Tis vain-thou answerest not!
Thou hast no voice to whisper of the dead;
"Tis ours alone, with sighs like odors shed,
To hold them unforgot!

Thine is as sad a strain

As if the spirit in thy hidden cell
Pined to be with the many things that dwell
In the wild, restless main.
And yet there is no sound

Upon the waters, whispered by the waves,
But seemeth like a wail from many graves,
Thrilling the air around.

The earth, oh moaning shell!

The earth hath melodies more sweet than these-The music-gush of rills, the hum of bees

Heard in each blossom's bell.

Are not these tones of earth,

The rustling forest, with its shivering leaves,
Sweeter than sounds that e'en in moonlit eves
Upon the seas have birth?

Alas! thou still wilt moan

Thou 'rt like the heart that wastes itself in sighs E'en when amid bewildering melodies,

If parted from its own.