THE

MISS NELLY MARSHALL.

HE subject of this sketch is the daughter of the distinguished General Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky, celebrated in the annals of the South as a oldier and a statesman. She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in the year 1847.

From her earliest childhood, Miss Marshall's intellectual development was remarkable, and her first compositions, though, as was natural, abounding in the crudities that mark the early efforts of all young writers, foretold that mental power and strength which have since won for her so many warm admirers and true friends. But those abilities which, in another, would have been carefully and tenderly nurtured, were, in her, subjected to the pruning-knife of opposition, and hence her talent may be said to have grown like the prairie-rose, climbing and clinging and blossoming at its own sweet will.

Reared in the strictest seclusion, and allowed only the freest communion with Nature, she has grown into womanhood with the trusting confidence of childhood in her heart and beautifying her character. She is described as petite in stature, delicately proportioned, and with large gray eyes and wavy light-brown hair.

Miss Marshall is perhaps one of the most popular writers in the South and West, although, as yet, her intellectual power is, as it were, undeveloped. Her friends claim and expect more marked manifestations of talent than she has yet given, and, judging by what this young lady has already accomplished, we think we may safely assert that they will not be disappointed.

The circumstances that led Miss Marshall to abandon the retirement in which she had hitherto lived, were very sad. The war, which brought devastation and desolation to so many homes in Kentucky, passed by "Beechland" with an unsparing hand. Unexpected trials, sickness, death, adversity, assailed that once merry household; and as a member of the shadowed and grief-stricken circle, Miss Marshall was compelled to resort to her pen, to stand in the breach between those

most dear to her and misfortune. She is now pursuing the profession of literature in New York, where she lives in strict retirement.

Miss Marshall recently published a novel, which was successful, entitled "As by Fire," published in New York by Geo. S. Wilcox.*

QUESTIONS.

Why are the days so drearily long?

Why seems each duty a terrible task?

Why have my red lips hushed their glad song?
Why?—thro' the distance I hopelessly ask!

Why are the sunbeams ghastly and dim?
Why have the flowers lost their perfume?
Why wails my heart a funeral hymn?
Why do my tears all my smilings entomb?

Was I predestined a child of despair?
Must all my brightest hopes soonest decay?
Must all my castles be reared in the air,
And hope, taking wings, speed fleetest away?

Will he forever be haughty and cold?

Never once melting 'neath love's sunny smile?
Memories-sweet mem'ries of glad days of old-
Teach me again how his heart to beguile!

Has the bright past no brightness for him?

Is the warm love that he cherished quite dead?
Ah, love's gay visions have grown strangely dim!
Holdeth his heart a new passion instead?

If this dark knowledge of misery be mine;

If the hope of his truth, because brightest, be fleetest:
Then, come, beloved Death! - I'll gladly be thine;

And of all Love's embraces thine own shall be sweetest!

* Prose selections from Miss Marshall's portfolio were twice lost by mail.

Shake down, oh, shake down your blossoms of snow,
Green alder-boughs, shake them down at my feet;

Drift them all over these white sands below,
Pulsing with perfume exquisite and sweet;
And 'neath their kisses it may be my heart,
Frozen and cold all these long dreary years,
Into fresh being may longingly start,
Melting its ice into passionate tears:

Tears that must flow like a wide gulf between
Two hearts that loved in the days long ago;
Days, when these alder-boughs nodding were green,
Flecked, as they now are, with blossoms of snow:
Days, when my lover and I were both young,
Both full of constancy, passion, and love;
Roaming and dreaming these wild woods among,
While a blue May sky bent smiling above.

Days that are dead as the dead in their graves ;
Days whose sweet beauty and perfume have passed,
Like the white foam-fret on Ocean's green waves,
Buoyant and lovely, but too frail to last.

And as we bend o'er the cold forms of those
Who have gone early to Death's sombre sleep,
Folding their hands as to welcome repose,

Thus have I come o'er these dead days to weep.

So bend low, oh, bend low! alder-boughs green,
Till I can catch at your blossoms of snow;
Nodding like hearse-plumes so soft in the wind
Over these smooth stretching white sands below!
Never again while I live, alder-boughs,

Will I your snow-blooms and verdant leaves see; But when I lie dead and cold in my grave,

I pray God they'll blossom and fade over me!

MY DEAD.

June roses may come,

And June roses may go,
And autumn be followed
By driftings of snow;

The sunbeams may smile,

And the sunbeams may fade,

And birds may abandon

The nests they have made;

And green leaves may burst bud
Beneath April's rain;

But nothing can give me

My dead back again.

And red lips may laugh,
And red lips may sigh
To soft winds that freighted
With fragrance go by;
And blue eyes may sparkle,

And blue eyes may weep,
And joys may come faster,
And sorrows may creep;
But whether there's shadow,
And whether there's shine,
There's nothing can give back
That dead love of mine.

The world will still roll on 'Mid feasting and fast; And no meads seem green As the dewy ones past; The sunshine will gild bright The rockiest steep,

The sweetest of violets

In valleys will sleep; But shadow, nor sunshine, Nor laughter, nor pain, From death's sleep will waken My darling again.