XVI. AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE.

ALICE CARY (1820-1871), one of the best of the women poets of America, was a native of Ohio. She began her literary work at the age of eighteen, and for the most part supported herself by her pen. With her sister, Phoebe Cary, she published several volumes of verses. She wrote several prose works of merit. Her later years were spent in New York city, where she was the center of a group of literary women. She was the first president of Sorosis, the first and most noted of women's literary clubs in America. She never married. During much of her life she was a great sufferer, but she bore her ills with patience. She died February 12, 1871.

1. O GOOD painter, tell me true,

Has your hand the cunning to draw
Shapes of things that you never saw?
Aye? Well, here is an order for you.

2. Woods and cornfields, a little brown,-
The picture must not be over-bright,

Yet all in the golden and gracious light
Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down.

3. Alway and alway, night and morn, Woods upon woods, with fields of corn

ALICE CARY.

Lying between them, not quite sere,
And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom,
When the wind can hardly find breathing-room
Under their tassels,- cattle near,

Biting shorter the short, green grass,
And a hedge of sumach and sassafras,

With bluebirds twittering all around,—
(Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!)
These, and the house where I was born,
Low and little, and black and old,
With children, many as it can hold,
All at the windows, open wide,-
Heads and shoulders clear outside,
And fair young faces all ablush:

Perhaps you may have seen, some day,
Roses crowding the self-same way,
Out of a wilding, wayside bush.

4. Listen closer. When you have done.

With woods and cornfields and grazing herds,
A lady, the loveliest ever the sun
Looked down upon, you must paint for me;
Oh, if I only could make you see

The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
The woman's soul, and the angel's face,
That are beaming on me all the while,
I need not speak these foolish words;
Yet one word tells you all I would say,-
She is my mother; you will agree

That all the rest may be thrown away.

5. Two little urchins at her knee

You must paint, sir; one like me,
The other with a clearer brow,
And the light of his adventurous eyes
Flashing the boldest enterprise;

At ten years old he went to sea,—

God knoweth if he be living now;

He sailed in the good ship "Commodore,"-
Nobody ever crossed her track

To bring us news, and she never came back.
Ah, 't is twenty long years and more
Since that old ship went out of the bay
With my great-hearted brother on her deck;
I watched him till he shrank to a speck,
And his face was toward me all the way.
Bright his hair was, a golden brown,

The time we stood at our mother's knee;
That beauteous head, if it did go down,
Carried sunshine into the sea!

6. Out in the fields one summer night We were together, half afraid

Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade

Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,----
Loitering till after the low little light

Of the candle shone through the open door,
And over the haystack's pointed top,

All of a tremble, and ready to drop,

The first half-hour, the great yellow star,
That we, with staring, ignorant eyes,
Had often and often watched to see,
Propped and held in its place in the skies.
By the fork of a tall red mulberry tree,

Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew,-
Dead at the top,- just one branch full

Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool,

From which it tenderly shook the dew
Over our heads, when we came to play
In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day.
Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore
A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs;
The other, a bird, held fast by the legs,
Not so big as a straw of wheat;

The berries we gave her she would n't eat,
But cried and cried, till we held her bill,
So slim and shining, to keep her still.

7. At last we stood at our mother's knee.
Do you think, sir, if you try,
You can paint the look of a lie?
If you can, pray have the grace
To put it solely in the face

8.

Of the urchin that is likest me:

I think 't was solely mine, indeed;
But that's no matter-paint it so;

The eyes of our mother (take good heed)-
Looking not on the nestful of eggs,

Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs,
But straight through our faces down to our lies,
And oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise!

I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though
A sharp blade struck through it.

You, sir, know

That you on the canvas are to repeat

Things that are fairest, things most sweet,

Woods and cornfields and mulberry tree,

The mother, the lads, with their bird, at her knee;

But, oh, that look of reproachful woe!

High as the heavens your name I'll shout,
If you paint me the picture, and leave that out.

ALICE CARY.

XVII. THE CRY OF THE HUMAN.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1809-1861). Of Mrs. Browning, Edmund Clarence Stedman has said: "She was the greatest female poet that England has produced, but more than this, the most inspired woman, so far as known, of all who have composed in ancient or modern tongues, or flourished in any land or clime." Mrs. Browning received a classical education, and although she was an invalid almost all her life she was a busy student and writer. In her marriage with Robert Browning she found ideal happiness. Their minds and tastes and capabilities were so akin that their lives were completely united. Mrs. Browning died in Italy, whither she had gone in search of health.

Her greatest work is Aurora Leigh. Her noted shorter poems are: Lady Geraldine's Courtship, The Cry of the Children, and He Giveth His Beloved Sleep.

1. "THERE is no God," the foolish saith,

But none,

"There is no sorrow;"

And nature oft, the cry of faith,

In bitter need will borrow:

Eyes which the preacher could not school,

By wayside graves are raised;

And lips say, "God be pitiful,"

Who ne'er said, "God be praised."

Be pitiful, O God!